


Don’t Come After Me

by totallyrandom



Series: Silent Stiles [3]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: ASL, American Sign Language, Angst, Beacon Hills is a hellmouth but not literally, Bisexual Male Character, Bisexual Stiles Stilinski, Dudebros, Emotional Healing, Eventual Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski, Gay Male Character, Intersex Character, M/M, On the Run, Pansexual Character, Pansexual Stiles Stilinski, Poor Stiles, Pre-Slash, Sign Language, So so so much angst, Stiles Leaves Beacon Hills, Stiles has fun sex with some people not like at the same time though, Stiles hates everybody, Stiles is 18, Stiles-centric, This is a series, background deaf character, brief nongraphic violence, character who uses a wheelchair, character with a disability, eventual Sterek reunion, let's pretend the season 5A finale didn't happen, libraries are awesome, or maybe literally, queer stiles stilinski, ridiculously named bar trivia teams, seriously Stiles is in a rough place when this starts, seriously stiles-centric with basically everyone else as background characters for a while, silent stiles, the Stiles and Derek stuff will be in Fuck Beacon Hell part 2, there's really a lot of cursing in this
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-25
Updated: 2017-04-17
Packaged: 2018-04-17 03:55:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 47
Words: 49,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4651284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/totallyrandom/pseuds/totallyrandom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No one notices that Stiles has gone quiet because no one is there for him to talk to anyway. First the pack is busy, then they’re giving Stiles space to get over his shit with Scott. But the space turns into distance. And no one notices. </p><p>The note he leaves on the kitchen counter says, “Fuck Beacon Hills and all the bullshit it brings here. Stay out of the whiskey and the bacon. Don’t come after me.”</p><p>(This ignores the season 5A finale, which I think we all wish we could do.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Fuck Beacon Hills

“You know what, Scott? I’m done. I’m just ... done. I’m not chasing after you anymore. That’s all I’ve done for THREE FUCKING YEARS now. I’m done feeling guilty for you getting bitten. I’ve done my penance for that by now, many times over. I saved your ass so. many. times. I fought by your side every time. I talked you down from the ledge when you wanted to SET YOURSELF ON FIRE. I played telephone for you and Allison even when you were basically ditching me for a date, when you only talked to me if you had messages for me to give her or you wanted to tell me how wonderful her hair was. A person whose grandfather kidnapped and beat the shit out of me, by the way, and you NEVER CAME TO GET ME.”

"But, Stiles ... "

“I always put you first, Scott. Even over Lydia. Over Malia. I put you first after my dad. I always believed you, man. I always believed _in_ you. No one could have been prouder than me when you became a true alpha. But where's your faith in me? I’m just the screw-up who got you bitten, right? Who killed your ex-girlfriend, right? With my own fucking hands. And I couldn’t stop any of it. I STILL have nightmares about the nogitsune every night. But we can’t talk about that because it’s too painful FOR YOU. You can talk and talk and talk about how life is _so hard_ for you as a werewolf, as an alpha. But Stiles will just follow behind and clean up your messes, right? Do your dirty work. Break into the police station. _Lie to my dad_. ... Get _my_ hands dirty so you can keep _your_ conscience clean.”

"That's not ... "

“You protect _your little beta_ , Liam. You protect _strangers_. You find a way to protect EVERYONE BUT ME. So, yeah, I fought Donovan off with a fucking WRENCH. Because that’s what you do when someone’s going to kill you and your family and you don’t have CLAWS. And it wasn’t even enough, anyway, even when I got a good swing in. He still chased me into the library. And I had to stay alive. I had to, to save my dad. I got fucking lucky for once and he fell. He fell and died. So, yeah, it’s my fault, I guess. It’s my fault I didn’t let him kill me. It’s my fault for protecting myself and my dad. Because there _sure as shit_ isn’t ever anyone else protecting me!”

"No, we all ... "

“There used to be. A guy who wasn’t even ever really my _friend._  But he saved me anyway. Protected me better than YOU ever did. But _you_ never wanted him in your pack. Never appreciated his help. Never cut him a break. Your sulking was more important than our safety. Fuck what anyone else says, right? So when you couldn't use him anymore, couldn't make a place for him in your precious pack, he left. You could make room for 'Theo,' somehow, but not him."

"That isn't ..."

"He left. And you left me too, Scott, even though you’re still right here. And that’s worse, man. That's so much fucking worse. So, sure, leave me out of your fucking pack because I’m a killer. So is that guy _pretending_ to be Theo, by the way. That dude is _not right_ , and he is going to fuck your shit up. I told you from the beginning. I was right about Peter. And Matt. _And Theo_. But you’re just so fucking excited to have more wolf bros. As long as they’re not _Derek_.”

"Derek?!"

“I can’t help if you don’t believe me. I fucking tried, but that's on you, not me. So just ... fuck off, Scott," he looks straight at him, anger drained. "I can’t chase after your friendship anymore. I’m making my own little pack. Just me and my dad. I hope Theo doesn’t fucking kill anyone else, man. Good luck. You're gonna need it. I hope you protect Lydia better than you ever protected me.”

“STILES. No. You can’t walk away like this. This isn’t done! Listen to me! WE’RE not done.”

Stiles doesn't bother to look back, exhausted. “Oh, Scotty, we so are. And you better keep your werewolf bullshit the fuck away from my dad,” he says flatly. He hops in the Jeep and peels out while Scott's still staring after him. Tomorrow he'll quit lacrosse and then he can count down the days to graduation without Scott around.

The pack each approach him in the halls over the next couple weeks, but Stiles always turns and walks away. They stop. They give him space or whatever. Maybe they think he’ll get this tantrum out of his system and come back. They don’t know. They must believe Scott. They don't apologize. They don’t ask him for another chance. They just wait. All of them.

No one probably realized it at the time, but that’s when it started. Everyone was mad at each other and working like hell to figure out the chimera shit and the stupid fucking Dread Doctors. Stiles wonders one quiet night alone in his room with his millions of thoughts whether anyone had tried to just yank out their creepy tubes, whether it could be that easy. He tells himself again that it’s not his fucking problem now. He’s sure that if he’s thought of it, Lydia will too soon enough. It’s freeing to just let it all go. He falls asleep repeating: _Not my circus. Not my monkeys.[1]_

Maybe no one notices that Stiles has gone quiet because no one is there for him to talk to anyway. Lydia’s probably still busy figuring out what the hell Parrish is and how to make him stop stealing bodies. Last Stiles saw, Mason was busy studying all the lore, slipping right into Stiles’s old research role. Mason and Liam are like a mini Scott and Stiles. God protect the world from two fucking Scotts. So first the pack is busy, then they’re probably giving Stiles space to get over his shit with Scott. Waiting for him to forgive them, even though no one actually apologizes to him. The space turns into distance. And no one shows any sign of noticing for over a month. 

It’s after everything with the creepy steampunk doctors calms down again (seriously, they finally just cut off the steam). That’s when he knows the Sheriff notices. Knows his dad hears keys clacking in his room without the usual muttering as he types. His dad seems to relax into the silence at home, no doubt relieved Stiles isn't turning up at crime scenes anymore. Stiles sees him decide to leave the gift horse alone. Stiles sees it all.

The teachers are enjoying the quiet, too. They look at Stiles sometimes, bracing for a smartass comment, but those never come. And it must be a relief to them, especially as the end of the semester approaches. They get to finish their lectures without being derailed. Or corrected. Or falling prey to the general mayhem that used to orbit Stiles. They’re probably glad for the peace and don't bother to examine its cause.

Malia stops coming by after a while too. He knows she’s busy with Scott's pack and the Desert Wolf business too. But after, she finds that Stiles has nailed his window shut, and by the next time she tries Stiles has circled the whole house with mountain ash. She gets the message. She moves on. He thinks she's enough of a real human now to deal with other people even without Stiles acting as a buffer. He knows she doesn’t need him anymore. None of them do.

Stiles fucks up his grades precisely enough to come in third in the class but not lose his chance at scholarships. When the graduation speeches come around, no one has to sit through an interminable salutatorian speech filled with little-known facts about some topic that would scar them for life.

Even Stiles is getting used to his own silence. He still has night terrors, but his screams are always silent, so the Sheriff never notices. If his dad sees the sleepless nights reflected in Stiles’s gaunt face, he doesn’t comment on it. He doesn’t comment on much these days. Stiles can’t even tell if he's noticed that Scott doesn’t come around anymore, that Stiles hasn’t slept for more than three hours at a time in the past two months, that Stiles hasn’t left the top floor of the house in a week, that he’s not eating or showering. That he’s wasting away from neglect. His dad has stopped keeping watch, as if he had only been worried about getting Stiles through high school. Now that he did, the Sheriff has clocked off duty.

A week after graduation, Stiles rallies. His anger pushes him past his despair long enough to get him out of town. He empties his bank account, ditches his credit cards, replaces his phone with a cheap burner, breaks the mountain ash circle, and hitches a ride out of town with a week’s worth of clothes, his laptop, a bag of mountain ash, some wolfsbane, and a brand new metal baseball bat. The note he leaves on the kitchen counter says, “Fuck Beacon Hills and all the bullshit it brings here. Stay out of the whiskey and the bacon and the full-moon drama. Don’t come after me.”

Stiles makes his first stop somewhere close and obvious just in case. Leaves an easy trail so they can find him if they look. Gives them a final chance to hold onto Stiles if they care enough. Hell, if they care at all. He stays for 6 nights in the cheap-ass hotel one town over. He had booked it in advance on a credit card that he left in plain sight on his desk at the Sheriff’s house. And it was the last call he placed on his old phone. He did everything but send out a fucking mass text.

He passes the week watching increasingly odd porn, deleting his social media accounts, disabling his laptop's webcam--anything they can use to track him and drag him home later.

Nothing is irreversible yet, but he wants to be ready when the timer runs out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the first fic I'm doing as a WIP. It should end up being well over 10k. Probably over 20k. We'll see. 
> 
> Feedback is always welcome!
> 
> [1] [k12reader.com/term/idiom](http://www.k12reader.com/term/idiom/)


	2. No One Cares

When the front desk calls to remind Stiles to check out, he’s too empty to be sad. He left all his tears in his old bedroom. There’s nothing left but a hollow space he’ll have a lifetime to try to find a way to fill.

It’s almost two weeks before his dad comes off double shifts. Another two days before he catches up on sleep enough to see the note and realize Stiles is gone. By then it’s too fucking late. When the report goes out, Stiles is already three states away and on his second burner phone, in case they were able to track the one he bought in Beacon County.

The only contact in the new phone is Derek’s old number, and he’s not even sure that still works. There’s nothing he can do about having his dad’s numbers memorized--home, cell, the station--and Melissa’s home, cell, and hospital numbers, of course. And Scott's. He’s probably stuck with those for life. He’s just glad he never bothered learning Malia’s or anyone else in the pack. That’s what smart phones are for. He’s grateful he doesn’t have to work at forgetting those numbers now. Makes it a little easier to let go of the people attached to them.

But Derek’s … he keeps that. Just in case. Even though he has no idea if it still works. He hadn't tried it out since Derek slipped away in Mexico. He figured he owed it to Derek to let him leave free and clear. Maybe Derek ditched his phone when he got the fuck out of Beacon Hell. He half hopes Derek’s smart enough to do that, but selfishly he needs him to be too much of a martyr to completely abandon them. When he thinks about being alone against all the things that go rawr in the night … well, he aggressively doesn’t think about that. But sometimes he has to pull up Derek’s contact to ward off a panic attack.

The truck drivers who pick Stiles up on the side of the road or at a random rest stop don’t care that he’s quiet. They’re not interested in listening to some kid talk anyway. They’re more than happy to fill up the empty space with their own ramblings. If they ask where he’s going, he just shrugs and they get it. When it’s time to move on, he just wanders away when they stop for gas.

By now, Stiles has no fucking idea where he is. It’s better this way for now. He’s got nowhere particular to run to anyway, so what does it matter where he is? When he gets bored, he joins a crowd of day laborers. He doesn’t need the money yet, but he wants to figure this off-the-grid shit out while he can still afford to fuck up. And he needs shit to do, anyway. So he’s learning manual skills. Slowly. And he’s only broken one finger so far. He can't go to a hospital, so he taped it to the finger next to it and hoped for the best.

Right now, he likes picking fruit with immigrants best, even though he’s really conspicuous and the pay is crap. It’s less than crap, really. How do people raise a family this way? The pay is horrifying and the work is beyond exhausting, so no one should have to do it forever. But it’s just what Stiles needs to get him out of his head for a while. And he’s probably less likely to break something.

Many of the field hands don’t speak English, so no one cares that he doesn’t talk. People actually steer clear of him, probably because he stands out as the only melanin-deficient worker in the fields. When he’s out of farm country, he paints houses for a while. Sometimes he accepts charity at diners or soup kitchens and then gives some money to people on the street to make up for it. He works as much as possible, doing a bit of anything offering a little cash under the table. He’s slowly learning how to get by without a Social Security number and bank account.

He stops at libraries for wifi when he can, using anonymous connections to log into a sheriff’s station account to make sure his dad is still alive, and to keep up with the progress of the missing person investigation. After 4 months, he’s close to turning 19 and his classmates have started college. He just left town a few months ahead of them. Outside of Beacon County, no one cares that's he's gone. He’s not a runaway minor. He’s just a legal adult who got the hell out of town after graduating high school. Nothing special about that. He’s relieved--mostly relieved, but a little sad too--when he logs in one day and sees there’s no official search for him anymore. That night he loses himself in a bottle of booze and a warm body.


	3. Better Not to Tempt Fate

Stiles writes down common names when he has to give one at all, and a different name in each town, but it’s hard to hide his gangly physical appearance. He’s gained muscle from the physical labor but he’s lost weight overall, so it kind of evens out. He looks like his old self, just … more ragged and somewhat less pale. Even the old buzz cut is back. It was cheaper to buy some crappy clippers than to keep paying for haircuts, and Stiles doesn’t really think a ponytail would suit him. He’s not looking to impress anyone, anyway. When he picks people up, they’re not exactly ones who give a shit what his hair looks like.

Every couple of weeks, if Stiles has wifi and isn’t already having a shitty day, he grits his teeth and checks his dad’s personal email. He’s never been more grateful for the Sheriff being a stoic Luddite who keeps his emotional conversations for in person or on the phone, if at all.[1] His home email is barely more personal than his work account. Lately it’s just a bunch of condolence messages back from law enforcement friends around the country saying there’s still no news to report in their areas but they’ll keep an unofficial eye out. It sucks that Stiles can’t just have a clean break like any other adult who outgrows his hometown. Instead he has to hide, and to do that, he has to keep up with what he’s hiding from.

Plus, it doesn’t matter how angry Stiles is; he has to know his dad is ok. He knows he had to leave Beacon Hills before it killed him, but he’s so afraid that him leaving will kill his dad instead. He lives in fear of getting a Google alert that his dad is dead--from grief or the supernatural or in the line of duty. So he keeps track of the doctor appointments and logs in to the medical portal afterward to check the results. The numbers aren’t exactly good lately, but they’re not much worse than before. It’s ok, Stiles reminds himself. Melissa will make sure his diet is mostly ok. Stiles keeps checking anyway, though. And he wishes on everything imaginable that Scott honors his parting demand to keep his dad out of the never-ending werewolf shitshow.

One night at the pub, he thinks about logging into Scott’s email. But he reminds himself and his beer that sober-Stiles would be really angry if he does. And he isn’t sure anyway if it would hurt worse to see a bunch of email about himself or none at all. So he doesn’t look. Beer after beer, he doesn’t log in to Scott’s account. And even drunk-Stiles knows better than to think he could successfully hack into Lydia’s.

The days are starting to all blend into a surprisingly easy routine. He can see how life like this would be lonely and terrifying and emotionally and physically exhausting for people who are poor, ill, without a safety net. But Stiles has money, even though he tries not to spend it. He’s used to long nights in the woods, and he can fall asleep instantly anywhere when he feels safe enough to relax. He’s an innocuous-looking white kid who can blend in most places. And he has a 100% success rate so far escaping the worst things that go bump in the night and coming out the other end alive. He doesn’t fear the dark anymore. He’s a human who stares down monsters, after all. And he has a bat.

Stiles starts to think it may be safe for him to stay somewhere for a little while. He hasn’t stumbled onto a town or city yet that feels right to really settle down, but this one will be ok for a little while. He has been on the move for months, and it would be nice to just stop for a while.

He’s a few days into a decent construction gig when they show up. Five workers who go full throttle all day and never break a sweat. They’re the first werewolves Stiles has encountered since he left. Or were-somethings, anyway. He can’t tell what kind exactly, but he knows they’re more than human. He’s just glad he doesn’t smell like Scott’s pack anymore, so they won’t be able to sniff him out and start trouble. The small amount of mountain ash and wolfsbane he always carries in his pockets are easily masked by sawdust and sweat. As far as anyone else can tell, Stiles is just another clueless human.

All day, he’s careful not to let on that he knows. He controls his heartbeat and makes sure not to stare. Their tells are obvious to him: a head tilt shortly before the crew boss shows up to check on them, flaring nostrils when the wind shifts, noticeably less personal space than other workers keep. He watches them in the periphery, keeps track of who is where at all times. Makes sure he’s not being penned in. Stiles keeps his head down for the rest of the day, grabs his money, and goes.

He’s not sure Scott is looking for him, of course. Just in case, he hitches a ride out of town that night. For the safety of his ex-friends--and his dad--he does hope Scott finally got his shit together as an alpha and reached out to establish diplomatic ties with other packs. Stiles told him to do that at least weekly for over a year before he gave up badgering him about it. Because Scott is at his core stupidly, dangerously, unreasonably independent. But if Scott finally did the smarter thing and then uses those new connections to locate him, well that would just be like Stiles’s fucking luck, wouldn’t it? So he gets two last cupcakes from the most amazing bakery he’s ever found and moves on again. It’s always better not to tempt fate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I know. Y'all want Derek to show up already. But Stiles isn't ready for him yet. ~~Soon, though.~~
> 
> [1] [en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite#In_modern_thought](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite#In_modern_thought)


	4. No Heartstrings Left

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A couple of my stories are nominated for a thing here if anyone is interested in voting: [eternalsterekrecs.tumblr.com/post/127567934720/eternal-sterek-voting](http://eternalsterekrecs.tumblr.com/post/127567934720/eternal-sterek-voting)
> 
> Some of the other Sterek stories on the list are among my very favorites. So even if you don’t vote, it’s worth checking out the recs. This page has summaries of the stories: [eternalsterekrecs.tumblr.com/post/127668831190/this-is-the-list-of-fics-with-links-and-summaries](http://eternalsterekrecs.tumblr.com/post/127668831190/this-is-the-list-of-fics-with-links-and-summaries)

After the close call with the weres, Stiles hitches straight through for three days without sleep, changing trucks two or three times a day. He doesn’t get in a new truck until the old one pulls away. He’s trying all the tricks he can think of, but he always worries it won’t be enough. It’s too soon. He can’t let anyone find him yet. He knows they’d apologize and make promises and tell him how much they need him. He already feels guilty all the time, especially over his dad. It wouldn’t take much to suck him back in. And if that happened, he’d never make it out of Beacon Hell again.

When he starts nodding off in the latest stranger’s truck, he hops out for coffee and doesn’t go back. Stiles drags himself on foot all the way from the truck stop into town. At least it helps wake him up. When he gets there, he’s shaken off the stiffness from being cooped up for so long without a break. He buys a shit-ton of nonperishable food and instant coffee before checking in at a truly skeevy motel. He pays for a week in advance and asks for extra towels, telling them not to bother sending the cleaning crew. The desk clerk seems too bored to question it. Stiles doesn’t so much as open his door the entire time he’s there. He sleeps for sixteen hours that first day, only waking up once, just long enough to pee before collapsing back in bed.

When he rises from the sleep of the dead, Stiles feels like his stomach is eating his liver. He chokes down room-temperature soup from a can and decides now’s a good time to figure out how to establish a new identity. He hasn’t really needed anything official so far, but it’d be good to be ready when it’s time to settle somewhere for a while. He makes a list of what he thinks he’d need and any ideas he has for how to make those things happen.

He guesses it’d be pretty easy to get a new driver’s license that would pass routine visual inspection, especially in a college town, but he’d need more than that to rent an apartment and open a bank account. And he’d need those to get a stable job. He’d also need a decent paper trail and people willing to confirm a previous address and to act as job references. If it were a real paycheck requiring a W-2 form, he’d even need a Social Security number. Stiles assumes Homeland Security probably makes faking that pretty hard nowadays.

So he’d need to stick to under-the-table work until he’s ready to resume life under his real identity. In a big enough city, there’d be plenty of opportunities to sublet and no shortage of cash jobs. But the bigger the city, the more security cameras.

In a small enough town he might be able to play younger. People might help out a scared runaway without turning him in if he said he felt unsafe at home. And if they thought he was seventeen, there’d be no use in bothering to get him into the official foster care system. He sure wouldn’t need to lie about being unsafe at home, even if it’s not exactly in the way they would assume.

He’d be taking a gamble no matter how he played it. And he’d feel really shitty imposing on, and lying to, anyone nice enough to help a poor runaway. Surely the internet would have plenty of better ideas for him to sort through. Maybe a guide somewhere for women needing to hide from abusive relationships.[1] He didn’t need to reinvent the strategies. Ok, good plan. But there’d be no way to find out that kind of information while holed up in this flea trap. He flips up his hoodie and moves to a hotel with wifi.

Stiles spends the daylight hours indoors, teaching himself computer skills beyond just Googling and falling down the Wikipedia rabbit hole. Knowing how to do real coding would help make him employable eventually. And if he were really good at it, no one would care how eccentric or reclusive he was, probably; maybe he could take contract jobs where he’d work from “home.” He takes breaks from being productive to dabble in less honorable skills, like trying to figure out how to hack databases to alert him if his name appears. For once his uncommon name might be a blessing.

He finds soooooo much advice on the internet--some of it contradictory, sure, but Stiles is used to sifting through mountains of information to find the truth. Following some advice that seemed reasonable, he starts to make friends online who are willing to help him plant some false leads. He just needs to mail a stamped postcard in an envelope to people in various cities and towns around the country with PO boxes. They’d open his envelope and drop the enclosed card in the mailbox for him. It seems so fucking easy. He wonders if it could actually be this easy. He’s _really_ fucking annoyed at himself for not figuring out to do it much earlier. He could have saved his dad a lot of worry if he’d done it right off the bat. And he certainly would have been less paranoid himself if he thought any search for him was happening far from his actual locations. But, this trip wasn’t exactly planned, and he was pretty overwhelmed with trying to figure out basic survival on the move until now. Still, he feels so fucking stupid.

Stiles plots out a reasonable path to “travel” and a schedule for the mailings. He tries to come up with things to say that would reassure the Sheriff that he’s ok while still making it clear he’s not interested in further contact. As the project progresses, he is meticulous in keeping a list of the places he has to remember to _never_ visit. Stiles just needs to get through another couple years on the move before he can start over somewhere nice using his own name and brace for the consequences. By then, his old life probably wouldn’t be chasing him down anyway. By then, no one in Scott’s pack would care anymore.

His dad wouldn’t ever give up, of course. But by the time Stiles would let himself be tracked down, Stiles’s heart would have scabbed over. He’d be able to be cordial, calm, detached and not get sucked back in. He’d be able to tell his dad directly, and without anger he hopes, that he’s not going back. Ever. By then, there’d be no heartstrings left for anyone to tug, nothing to use to pull Stiles home.

After a few more years like this, nothing of Stiles’s old tender heart would even exist anymore to feel guilty about anything. He’d be _free_. Stiles is so relieved to finally have a plan that he celebrates with a couple or five beers and pulls up some porn for the first time since leaving Beacon County.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Every time I think it's time for Derek to appear, I realize that something else needs to happen first. Sorry! I even have the first Derek chapter written already, but Stiles needs to grow and heal a bit on his own first. ~~I'll try to post a chapter a day until Derek appears, though, so you won't have to wait too long.~~ I'll probably slow down a bit after that because I have a lot of family stuff going on in September. So after the next few chapters, updates might be weekly for a while.
> 
> [1] If you feel unsafe at home, please seek real help. Do not take any suggestions from this fic. I have not researched any of it. I just couldn’t make myself read advice for abuse victims. It’s possible that the methods mentioned here are awful and dangerous. Please be safe. Here's a place to begin your search for help: [womenshealth.gov/violence-against-women/get-help-for-violence/resources-by-state-violence-against-women.html](http://womenshealth.gov/violence-against-women/get-help-for-violence/resources-by-state-violence-against-women.html)


	5. Breathing Again

Without access to more Adderall and the physical exertion of hard work, his brain needs to have multiple things to work on at once. Stiles starts teaching himself Latin in addition to programming, and that helps him cope with the confinement for a while. After two weeks in seclusion, though, he’s practically vibrating with the need to _move_. He goes for a five mile run after dark that day. And the next. And the next. It helps but it’s not enough. He tries ten miles and finally manages to sleep through the night. The nightmares only come about once a week now--plus right after he checks his dad’s email. This is definitely the most rested he’s been since Scott started sprouting fangs. 

Stiles hacks into a big gym chain’s database to give himself an account and walks in with a fake smile and a note saying he’s lost his membership card. They print him a new one and he’s good to go. He makes a donation to the local Boys & Girls Club to make up for it. His new routine is to get up early and do the weights circuit or boxing on alternating days before studying for the rest of the day. At night he runs a ten mile loop and has a mostly reliable sleep schedule for the first time ever. It’s a comfortable enough holding pattern, and he thinks he’ll actually be ready for whatever comes next. 

Except, of course, he’s not. He walks into the gym one morning and there’s someone different at the desk. Someone from high school. He groans quietly, realizing maybe it was dumb to stay in a college town. He thought it’d be easier to blend in, but he didn’t expect someone from Beacon Hills to be in this random little liberal-arts-college town. What the fuck?! 

Before Stiles can slip away, the desk clerk spots him. They recognize Stiles right away and throw him a big smile. Stiles isn’t sure they'd ever even spoken to each other in high school, but maybe it’s just homesickness making them happy to see a familiar face? They start chattering about how it’s so great to be away from home isn’t it, and how they don’t even want to go back for summer but promised their grandma so what can you do, and they’re leaving the next day actually, and hey if you’re heading home too we should totally carpool because it’s such a boring drive dude, and blah blah blah. There’s no end in sight. They barely pause the monolog to breathe. Stiles doesn’t even listen to the words, just stands there stunned, glued to the floor as the tidal wave of words crash over him. 

At one point it looks like they’re actually going to come out from behind the desk to give him a bro hug, and that’s it. Stiles jerks into motion. What’s even the point of pretending to be polite? He just turns on his heel and walks away in the middle of a sentence, and before they can remember that it was a big deal when _Stiles went missing_ right after high school. Maybe somehow they never knew about it, or just don’t remember. Or maybe it just hasn’t hit them yet. Stiles isn’t going to stick around to find out. 

After taking a winding route back to his room, Stiles deletes his record from the gym’s membership database and thumbs it out of town. He alternates two towns of working and one town of computer training and exercise for a while. After a while, he starts staying in each new place for longer amounts of time. He’s afraid he’ll run out of new places to go and he’s just tired. It’s an easy enough routine now. He’s still getting to see different parts of the country, but by spending more time in each place, he’s starting to figure out where he might like to end up--and where not.

Somewhere along the way, Stiles starts breathing again. He sees a toddler literally cry over spilled milk at a diner one day, and it makes Stiles smile so much his cheek muscles ache from disuse. It helps that it happens while Stiles is eating the best piece of Boston cream pie he’s ever tasted. In that moment, all of a sudden, he’s _happy_. 

The next day, he goes back for more cake.[1] He skips real food and just tries three different kinds of cake. Stiles indulges himself now as often as he can when something brings him a moment of joy, since he doesn’t know when he’ll have to suddenly walk away. Right now, life is … good. His cheap motel room is unusually clean. It’s an easy walk to the library to use their wifi and to just exist around other people in a space where people are _expected not to talk_. He discovers that the diner with the cake also has really good milkshakes, and the staff are friendly without being nosy. He could live in a place like this someday. Maybe. One day he stops to pick up a bag of groceries someone had dropped while tangled in their dog’s leash. They laugh and thank him for the help, and he thinks they might be flirting with him. He’s not interested, but the smile Stiles gives them is real.

Stiles is slowly coming back to the world. Just a little, but still. Each day his life becomes a bit more about what he’s letting in and less about what he pushed away. The little notebook he carries in his pocket now has sheets with varying phrases he needs for interacting with people in town. Because Stiles does that now. It used to be only a fake name, “I don’t speak,” “I am here to work--cash only,” and “I need a room.” Now it’s also things like “Hi,” and “Please,” and “Thank you.” And eventually things like, “Can you recommend a good nonfiction book?” and “What’s a good place to eat?” and “What do you recommend?” join the collection. People are mostly kind to him. And his smiles begin appearing more often.

Stiles realizes one day that he feels like a person again. It only took a year and a half.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1] Boston cream pie is a cake. [en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_cream_pie](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_cream_pie)


	6. Rooms Full of Books and People

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m thinking of breaking this up into a Stiles-centric fic with a Stiles & Derek sequel because I’m afraid people will be annoyed about false advertising on the Derek front. What do you think? Or I can add a note to chapters 1 & 2 saying “If you want to skip to the Stiles & Derek stuff, just read chapters 1 & 2 and then skip to X.” Of course, then that spoils the story. 
> 
> So, I guess that’s 3 options: leave it as-is and people will get to Derek when I’m good and ready (well, when Stiles is good and ready, actually), Stiles story with Stiles & Derek sequel, or leave it as one story with a note telling people which chapters they can skip if they get bored with all the solo Stiles stuff? Give me your input if you want.
> 
>  
> 
> **ETA: Ok, this is now the Fuck Beacon Hell series. Part 1 will be Stiles. Part 2 will be Stiles & Derek. Now I feel less guilty. ;)**

Stiles is at the local library in the latest city, just wandering around to figure out where everything is. He breathes in the familiar book smell, browses the biography section, listens for a few minutes as the children’s librarian reads the kids one of Stiles’s favorite books, accompanied by a sign language interpreter. After listening for a chapter, Stiles wanders over to skim the community announcement board. There’s an evening sign language class starting the next week. He wonders if there’s a large Deaf community here or if it’s just one of the awesome things the library offers just because. Because public libraries are amazing. Stiles never would have made it this far without them. 

He also wonders if he’ll still be in town when the ASL class starts.[1] It could be interesting to learn. Something else to keep his mind busy besides coding and Latin. He thinks he’d like the physicality of the language. And it could open up another job opportunity if he became fluent. But he’d have to interpret in both directions. He thinks he could do it, eventually. Just repeat others’ words aloud. It’s not the same as talking. He stares at the flyer for a minute before sitting down to use the wifi. 

The first thing he sees in his email is a Google alert on his dad’s name, and it suddenly feels like his heart is trying to escape up his throat. It’s not the Sheriff, though, just someone in Wisconsin with the same name. He stares at the screen, unseeing, as his pulse inches back to normal. He suddenly feels _alone_. He shuts his laptop and just sits for a while and breathes in the comfort of a room full of books and people. 

Stiles does come back and start learning sign language. For the first time in his travels, he craves connection. But just in small doses. The teacher, a hearing child of Deaf parents,[2] goes around the room asking each student why they are there. She says a sentence aloud and then stops to sign it in ASL. so everyone can get used to watching the hand movements. There’s a gay couple planning to adopt a child who is hard of hearing. A book editor who just accepted a summer intern who’s Deaf. A retiree dating someone who is beginning to lose their hearing. Stiles pays less attention to personal details as they circle around closer and closer to him. 

When it’s his turn, Stiles passes the teacher a note saying he wants to go immersive and not speak aloud with them until after the six-week course is over. And that he’s just learning because it’s interesting and he’s curious about maybe eventually becoming an interpreter. Everyone seems impressed by his dedication. Stiles feels awkward at all the attention, especially since it’s not exactly a lie but definitely lie-adjacent.

He finds it surprisingly easy to participate in the group, though. Of course, personal boundaries are pretty rigid when you state you’ll only talk to people in a language none of you actually know yet. Everyone seems nice and not pushy so far, though, so he decides to stick with the class. If he makes it to the end, six weeks would be the longest he’s stayed in one place. And it would be exponentially more time than he’s spent with any person since he left California. He tells himself it’s only $100, and it’s going to a good cause. It’s worth it, whether he ends up finishing the course or not.

For the first few weeks, Stiles watches more than he signs because it’s awkward when he gets it wrong and has to write down what he’s trying to say for the teacher to translate for him. And it’s important to him not to monopolize her time. Some of the people are there to learn how to speak to family, friends, or coworkers, and Stiles would never want to get in the way of that. The teacher is very kind about it, and she takes some extra time after class to teach him specific things he wants to learn to say. She laughs when she sees “vampire” and “werewolf” and “ghost” on the list. She asks him if he’s a fan of _Being Human_ , which throws him for a second until she explains the tv show before teaching him the signs.[3]

Since the class is so short and there are so many instructional videos on YouTube, the amount of homework each week is brutal. It’s hard work remembering all the vocabulary in the middle of a conversation, and it requires a lot of studying outside of class. That’s perfect for Stiles, of course. He knows much more than he lets on in class, but pretending to be frustrated at forgetting words conveniently allows him to steer conversations away from personal information.

Stiles and the teacher, Pilar, become not exactly friends but definitely friendly. After the fifth class, she invites him out for a drink and assures him she still won’t expect him to speak aloud. As an enticement, she promises to teach him all the bar-related words, and Stiles accepts with a genuine smile. He wonders sometimes if she can tell he’s not just going immersive on a whim. Maybe she assumes he’s losing his hearing but doesn’t want anyone to offer sympathy. He thinks that may be why she’s showing him this extra kindness, offering him a way into the Deaf world. He finds the idea of accepting that kind of help uncomfortable, but the class is almost over, so he meets her at the bar. Three beers in, Pilar teaches him how to curse. He cobbles together a sentence in ASL to tell her this it’s the most fun he’s ever had learning a language. Stiles wonders at the end of the night whether she’s flirting with him. He doesn’t encourage it.

For the last class, no one speaks; they only sign. They’re in pairs. One person signs and then the other tries to translate aloud. Stiles goes last, and he and the teacher have an actual back-and-forth conversation, with Pilar speaking both sides. Everyone claps at the end, making Stiles blush. Pilar’s mother, who is Deaf, joins them at the end of class and they get to watch an ASL conversation at full speed, at first with Pilar translating and then silently. Stiles is happy to catch maybe half of it, but he thinks that’s not bad for a six-week course. On his way out, he signs that to Pilar. When she gives him a hug, he stiffens slightly but doesn’t pull away.

He’s in a good mood as he leaves the library, so of course that’s when the night turns to shit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1] [ASL = American Sign Language](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Sign_Language), which is its own language, different from signed English
> 
> [2] [CODA = child of Deaf adult](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_of_deaf_adult)
> 
> I don’t know much about the Deaf community, but I hope I succeeded in showing proper respect. I’m always open to learning more if someone wants to correct any errors I’ve made here or post a link to an article that would explain where I went wrong. It’s obviously not anyone’s job to teach me about these issues. There's a whole internet out there for me to read. I'm the one who chose to include this without studying the issues in-depth. It was a conscious choice I made to allow myself to write at a faster rate. Still, I’m open to criticism on this or any other topic, especially regarding diversity. 
> 
> This is always, always true for all my fics and in my life in general: I would much rather someone tell me when I screw up than for me to continue making errors because someone thinks it’s more polite not to call me out. I will try my best to learn and not be defensive and not tone police. And I will always appreciate your effort to help me be better.
> 
> [3] Original UK version of _[Being Human](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Being_Human_\(UK_TV_series\))_ > US version


	7. Just His Shit Luck

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, this is now the Fuck Beacon Hell series. See the end notes for more info.

Stiles had been having such a good evening. He probably wouldn’t pursue hanging out with Pilar or any of the ASL students, but it was … nice having people who knew him a little bit. Who’d smile at him because they were happy to see _him_ , and not just because they wanted a tip at the end of a business transaction. 

He’s not ready for more yet, though. Not ready for all the questions that would come if he let someone get closer. If he made _friends_. Because of course everyone he meets has _questions_. He knows they wonder why he doesn't speak. They see that he carries his duffle everywhere. That he’s constantly checking the exits. He can see the questions roiling inside them. And sometimes one bubbles up, pops out. He can usually deflect, and if not he just bails from the situation. Politely, if he can, but bails regardless. But, yeah, who _wouldn’t_ have questions? Hell, _Stiles_ has questions! 

He gets so frustrated with himself sometimes. Knows his life would be easier if he could just _make_ himself talk sometimes. Well, no, maybe that’s not precisely true. The small things might be easier. Asking directions. Getting change. Dealing with people who speak English but can’t read it. He makes strangers’ lives a little more difficult sometimes. And he worries that it makes him more memorable, which could help people track him. And that would suck. 

So he runs through scenarios in his head sometimes. He imagines himself in situations where he’d just open his mouth and make sound. It seems so simple, but his heart races just thinking about it. He keeps trying to work up to it, though. Like, he imagines just going into a new diner one day and making some small talk with a server. Mention the weather, compliment the food, just fucking say “hello” for once. He knows people find those bland pleasantries comforting. No one really cares _what_ is said in a conversation like that. But it’s a soothing routine, an expectation; it rubs against the grain when someone fails to follow such a common convention. The amount of discomfort it can cause is odd, really, given that it’s such a superficial interaction. But that’s just the way most people work. Even though Stiles has never really worked quite the same way as most people anyway, he does know how a smattering of words can smooth over other tensions. 

If Congress could have hired pinch-filibusterers, Stiles would have been a star player back before. He could talk and talk for days. Of course, Stiles had never gotten the hang of making _appropriate_ conversation. He used to get too distracted with relaying “interesting” information that no one else gave a shit about. Or that was inappropriate given the place, time, company. He’d get pulled down a path of odd facts and random theories and strange what-ifs. He’d talk too much, too long, too loud, taking up too much time and too much space.

He’d had no filter, back then. Even back when he talked, though, he was shit at talking about _important_ things. Those stayed tightly bottled inside. He learned that from his dad. Learned to talk _around_ the big things. To talk about all the little things so that there was no room for confronting things that matter too much. Joking in the face of fear. Or hurt. It’s a coping mechanism that had gotten the Stilinskis through years of hospital visits and crushing grief. It had proved somewhat less adaptive for dealing with things that go grrr. Taunting monsters had certainly not gone well for Stiles a lot of the time … Well, at least those monsters are in a whole different time zone now.

Tonight, though, talking _probably_ would have gotten him out of trouble instead of into it. It might have only taken one word. Maybe two. “Sorry, dude” may have been all it would have taken to fix everything. But this was a scenario that he hadn’t anticipated. Hadn’t rehearsed. Not that he’d actually acted on any of the other scenarios. Yet. But he likes to think he was working up to it. Likes to think he might have taken the leap soon, maybe even in the next town.

In the heat of the moment tonight, though, and after so long in silence, he’s completely unprepared to force the necessary words out of his mouth.

So, yeah, things at the library had gone really well. It’s a gorgeous night. The clouds had cleared and Stiles can even see some stars. He’s wandering back toward his room when he stops for a minute to gaze up at the night sky. That’s when someone shoulder-checks him. Something that happens all the time in crowds. No big deal. No real damage. Shrug it off and move on. But, no.

Stiles is  _happy_ , and not just for a fleeting moment because he's drunk or the cake is good. The last few hours had been kind of … _wonderful_. So his guard is down. Just for a minute, while he looks up at the great big sky, there’s a gap in his hypervigilance. Just long enough to not notice he’s in their way. They’re laughing and tumbling over each other. Maybe drunk or just goofing around. He hears them approaching, but his reflexes are slower when he’s not constantly on edge. He doesn’t turn to look in time. And it’s just his shit luck striking a-fucking-gain that even though Stiles is standing still on an otherwise empty sidewalk, they somehow still knock into him. And it’s just his fucking luck that they think it’s Stiles’s fault for, like, existing in their general vicinity or something.

And the self-entitled assholes _demand that Stiles fucking apologize_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this is now the Fuck Beacon Hell series. Part 1 will be mainly Stiles. Part 2 will be Stiles & Derek. Now I feel less guilty for adding more and more chapters before Derek appears. ;)
> 
> If you like the story but just want Derek to show up already, you could bookmark the series to check on later and/or subscribe to the series and ignore it until I start posting part 2? (Sometimes I follow a user who writes in multiple fandoms and just delete email notifications for fandoms I don't read.) 
> 
> Of course, if you abandon the story altogether, I totally get it. I really appreciate people giving the story this much of a chance already. Sorry if this isn't what you were looking for (yet)! 
> 
> As always, I'm open to all criticism that could help me be a better writer (and better person).


	8. Think, Think, Think

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has a little nonspecific bullying and a short, not terribly graphic, description of a fight. You can skip to “Once they’re out of sight” or skip the chapter entirely if you prefer not to read that. Let me know if you think I’ve overlooked any warnings.

There’s five of them. From the way these dudebros are carrying on, you’d think Stiles had keyed their car while calling Bud Light a shitty beer and pissing on their football mascot all at once. They get up in his face, call him names, want to know what he thinks he’s doing.

He puts his hands up and makes a sheepish face. Tries to defuse the situation quickly and go on his way. But they’re having none of it. They yell at him to make it “right”: what’s your problem, just fucking apologize dude, you wanna start something, where d’you think you’re going asswipe?! 

Stiles keeps his hands up, backs away slowly, moves one hand over his throat and mouths: “sorry.” He tries his best to look apologetic instead of fucking angry with them for ruining his good day. And he is so very much _not_ trying to start something. He’s trying to _end_ it. He’s trying _really fucking hard_ to end it _really fucking quickly_. Hell, his entire life for well over a year now has been an attempt to end something Stiles didn’t fucking start.

The more he backs away without giving them an audible apology, the redder their faces get, the more the veins in their necks look ready to pop. They start to flank him, getting a couple good hits in. Trying to grab hold of him. He might have a fractured rib, definitely will have a shiner. Then the big rage-douche pushes him down and goes to stomp him, but Stiles’s instincts finally kick in and he rolls away, the boot landing on his duffle instead of his leg.

Stiles jumps to his feet and has his bat in hand almost before he realizes he’s moved. He doesn’t attack but he won’t back down either, and he definitely won’t let any of them out of his fucking sight until he’s a safe distance away. He cannot end up in the fucking hospital. He backs up carefully to keep them all in his line of sight and to give himself room to swing if he has to. This is all automatic response, moves drilled into him through hours of training and battle tested in more than a handful of middle-of-the-night brawls in the California woods. Stiles can’t make himself turn his back on an attacker who’s still close enough to grab him, but he also has a really poor success rate with trying to move backward quickly without tripping over his own feet. He’s not liking his chances for getting away unless they stop advancing.

The more he retreats, the more aggressive they become, getting bolder as they seem to be winning this argument. They’re yelling louder and following faster now, naive enough to think he’s easy prey. Because they haven’t noticed the hard, wild look seeping into Stiles’s eyes. Anyone with real fighting experience would see in his face and the strategic way he moves that they’d be better off walking away before shit gets _messy_. But they’ve clearly never met anyone truly dangerous before. And Stiles is trying to keep it that way.

His apologetic body language and the five-to-one odds have tricked them into thinking they have the advantage. And none of them notice when Stiles’s face goes stony and he drops his weakling façade. Full of bravado with the others there as backup, the little one on the left lunges for him suddenly. Stiles hadn’t pegged him for the brave one. Startled, he pivots and swings for the fences, regretting it immediately as he hears the sick snap of the guy’s arm breaking. Remembers too late that laying someone out with his were-trained reactions is overkill against other humans, especially since he’d started pumping iron. Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit. Stiles’s is going to be FUCKED after this fight is over.

It’s just a _shit show_ now. They all charge Stiles at once, getting in each other’s way and making it hard for him to keep them off while checking his swing. He thinks he manages to only bruise some of their ribs before they realize he’s not going down easy. Some of them start backing off. They haven’t been able to touch him since the bat came out, and they don’t even realize he’s going easy on them. Fear is creeping into their faces. So when the little one starts whining about needing to get to a hospital, they take the out, pretending that’s why they’re backing off.

They hurl more insults as they limp away, yelling about this not being over, but it seems mostly like an excuse for looking over their shoulders to reassure themselves that he’s not coming after them. Stiles is pretty sure from the way they’re walking that, other than the one broken arm, everything but their egos should heal in a week or two.

Once they’re fully out of sight, Stiles collapses on the curb and yanks violently at his hair. He hadn’t realized how long he’d let it get. He’s glad, though. It’s satisfying to be able to tug on it, since he can’t scream out his rage and frustration and anger at himself for fucking hurting someone. Again. And it means he can cut his hair and be less recognizable.

He wills his pulse to calm and scrubs at his face, stopping to poke at the tenderness around his eye. He heaves a few breaths and prays not to have a panic attack right now. He doesn’t. have. time. _He needs a plan._

A plan. A plan. A plan. Ok. First he needs to list the dangers so he doesn’t overlook anything. Then he needs to weigh his options. Then he can make an exit strategy. Right. Ok. He needs to _think_ , but there’s just so much adrenaline and nowhere to unleash it right now.

Stiles has a Winnie the Pooh moment, telling himself: Think, think, think.[1]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1] Winnie the Pooh moment: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5R8XHrfJkeg>


	9. Walk It Off, Stilinksi

Ok. So. First? … First he has to get off this street. He’s going to have a decent black eye later and some other bruises purpling up soon, but he can manage for now. He thinks his rib probably just has a hairline fracture. That’s lucky; a punctured lung would’ve meant game over. 

He pats himself down and lets out a relieved breath. His current injuries are so minor compared to damage he’d suffered with the pack. He hears Coach’s voice in his head saying: _Walk it off, Stilinksi!_

He has never been gladder that he cases each town when he first gets there. He ducks into an alley he knows has no security cameras and starts with the obvious things, the things he can do immediately right here. He hunches over his bag and uses his phone as a flashlight to scrutinize the bat. He’s looking for blood, anything they can use against him. He can't see any blood, but there may be trace skins cells? He pours pretty much an entire bottle of hand sanitizer on the bat and does his best to scrub it clean with the sleeve of his hoodie.

Maybe he should wash it in bleach later too? Should he bathe the entire thing in bleach to remove his prints and then ditch it in some dumpster far away? Would that look weird if they used the black light on it later? Bleach glows like blood, right? Or is that just some CSI tv bullshit? He can’t remember. Shit shit shit. Deeeeeeeeeeep breaths.

It’s unlikely they’d think to test some random bat to see if it was used in a crime, right? Maybe? Better safe. If bleach is the way to go, he’d probably need to steal a bottle from the housekeeping closet? He can’t go shopping now, can he? Some security camera might have caught the fight. He didn’t have his hood up during the fight. Fuck! The douchebros might file a police report about an unprovoked attack by a bat-wielding thug. No, they wouldn’t use the word “thug.” They’d call him a “lunatic,” maybe, which might be kind of funny if he had time for a sense of humor.

He sits to make a list of the current problems and subproblems:

  * Dudebros might report him? Cops passing sketch around by tmrw?
    * Cops take their word if hide/leave
    * ASL grp ID him
    * Fake name --> motel search
    * Can they find out lib wifi use? Research more comp safety
  * Security tape / other witnesses?
    * Yay: They started it & out#d him. They hit 1st
    * Boo: Weapon. No sound in vid. Broke their fucking arm
  * Need to buzz hair off soon
  * Ditch bat??????????
  * Bruises > 1 wk to heal
    * Hide while heal
      * Makeup more obvious in sm towns
      * Hang at gay bars?
    * Hide here?
      * Pay another week now b4 bruises
      * No escape rte from cops
  * Run now b4 bruises?
    * Check room or go now?
    * Maybe can’t get room in new town if shiner too obv
  * Can't work if look like bar brawl
  * DAD might find out abt fight
    * Fuck
    * Double fuck
    * FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK



He rips off the sheet, crumples up the list and allows himself a minute to curl tight around himself, spilling tears onto his knees. Then he pulls himself together, mops up his face, and, as usual, chooses to run. _Right the fuck now._

Stiles flips up his hood and hides his face from the cameras as he buys a shit ton of protein bars, a bottle of water he plans not to drink until his tongue starts to stick to the back of his throat, and a couple packages of disinfectant wipes. He ducks into the bathroom to finish the clean-up job on the bat as best he can, hoping that using the entire package can make up for skipping the bleach. He hops the first ride he can find, the used wipes tied up in a shopping bag he’ll dump at another stop on the road.

Three hours later Stiles flips his hood up again before going inside to piss, dumps the bag of wipes in a random fast food trashcan, and switches rides. He switches again in another two hours, this time to find a long-haul truck. He finds a dumpster and ditches his bat. Tries not to panic about whether it will be found, whether he cleaned it well enough, whether he’s safe without a weapon. He’s done with weapons. Just hand-to-hand and mountain ash from now on. Even if it’s not safer for him, it’s safer for them. For all of them.

Stiles approaches a new driver, making sure he looks harmless and as young as his years for once. He shows her a note saying: “Please. I need to get out of here. I don’t care where as long as it’s far away.” As she eyes him warily, he counts himself lucky that the bruise has just started showing on his face. He turns to show it off then writes: “Things are bad at home. I can’t be here right now.” And damn if that isn’t all 100% true, if not connected in the way she’d assume.

She purses her lips and stares him hard in the eyes. He drops his defenses for a second and lets his sadness and weariness show. She exhales sharply and tilts her head toward the truck for him to follow. She mumbles something not meant for his ears. She’s not looking at him when she says it so it’s hard to figure out. But if he had to give a guess, he thinks she said something like: well, at least he wouldn’t talk her ear off.

He closes his eyes for a second before opening the door. Ok. Ok. This might actually work? He neeeeeeeeeds this to work. Maybe more than anything else he’s ever hoped for since leaving home. NO, not home. It would never be his home again. He needs this more than anything since _leaving the pack_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don’t know anything about crime scene cleanup or evading the police. I hope none of us ever need that kind of information. But if you do, I recommend not taking any pointers from this fic.


	10. Adrenaline Crash

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has a little more talk about (hypothetical) fighting.

Just a few hours later, Stiles is having to pinch himself repeatedly to keep from falling asleep. He’s in the middle of a bad adrenaline crash while cooped up in the cab of this truck. Having already escaped and ditched his bat, there’s nothing for him to do right now but ride this out. And for once the driver isn’t a chatty one; she just hums along to some quiet music. He’s bruised to hell and can’t do anything useful right now, and it’s so hard to resist the heaviness in his eyelids when the monotonous sound of tires rolling along blacktop is lulling him to sleep. 

She looks at him every once in a while, sometimes seeming surprised to see someone in her space. Maybe she doesn’t usually let anyone in? He can’t tell if she’s regretting it now or maybe a little bit glad not to be alone for once. If this is rare, he wonders if it would make him too memorable. It’s too late to change anything now, though. He just needs to stay alert and stay the course. So he sits up straight, tries to make himself as uncomfortable as possible but without shifting around often enough to irritate her. The less she pays attention to him, the longer she’ll probably let him stay. And, really, he finds it nice to be around someone without them expecting anything from him but _quiet_. And that’s for sure the only thing he has to offer anyone right now.

At the end of the route, Stiles is grateful to move his body freely again. He nods his thanks to the driver, who just looks back at him for a moment, clearly trying to decide what--if anything--to say to him. She just sighs and mumbles for him to be safe, kid. He gives her a small smile of gratitude and waits to leave until she’s busy handing off the load. He starts walking on, the same direction they'd been headed before they stopped. He goes for a mile or so then checks that no one is around to pay attention before changing to a parallel road and heading back the opposite direction. If anyone came looking for him, they’d assume he stayed in town or continued on in the same direction the truck had been going, he hopes. He decides he’ll backtrack a couple towns and get a motel. He could use a few nights of decent sleep. Preferably in a bed, but anywhere out of sight would have to do at this point.

He walks the stiffness out of his legs and shakes some circulation into his arms, but his side starts aching more and more as he racks up the miles. It’s getting late and he’s not going to make it much farther on foot today. He keeps going until he spots a field with an abandoned barn leaning toward the road. He slips around to the other side to hide behind it and lies down to nap for a bit. At least no one would spot him from here. And if the barn fell, it most likely wouldn’t fall on him.

He gets a good two hours in before some noise wakes him with a jolt. He doesn’t see anything, but he stays awake for another hour or so just listening. Not for the first time, Stiles wonders if he should have just let those fuckers beat the everliving shit out of him. They would have gotten tired of it eventually. Probably. As long as it hadn’t been bad enough to need an x-ray, he could have just holed up back in his room to heal for a while and gone on as usual. Without the worry of being a person of interest in a violent crime hanging over his head. Fuck, he can’t think about this anymore.

He runs through the periodic table song in his head, and the Monty Python philosophers song, and the fifty states song.[1] He fills his mind with lyrics and facts and anything to keep from thinking about real life until he’s ready to slip off back to sleep.

He wakes again with the dawn, chokes down a brick of sawdust calling itself a protein bar, and sips as little water as possible before he takes off. He makes sure to always be prepared for long walks. Water is heavy, so he never carries more than a gallon jug at a time. He’s rationing what’s left of this one as best he can. Hiking the open road and sleeping rough sucks after a while, but at least it helps keep him from feeling like the walls are closing in. Physically at least.

There’s not much good to think about on his hike, though. So he can’t keep from obsessing over the fight again. Replaying it again and again to figure out where he could have fixed it. He needs to figure it out, really, because there are douchebros everywhere in the world just waiting to be pissed off at him if he’s not more careful.

Well, the first thing is to not let his guard down. Duh. He has to be wary every minute until it’s time to stop running. And that time might be farther away than ever now. _No_. He can’t let himself worry whether there’s a new active search for someone of his description. He can’t work on _that_ problem until he can get somewhere and connect his computer. He pushes it aside and instead tries to brainstorm new silent techniques for conflict de-escalation.

After four hours of stewing, Stiles’s best plan is to just run. Briiiiiiiilliant. But he’s got these long legs. And with cross-country training and then actually running across country terrain to flee beasts in the woods, Stiles is quicker than most. If he’s up against a fast one, they’d probably be small enough that Stiles could hold his own in a quick grapple then slip away. He could twist, push, even take a smaller one down with a pulled punch and keep running before the others caught up. Yeah, ok. Next time he’d run. He’d fight his instincts and make himself turn his back on the assholes. After examining the problem inside and out, that’s the best he can come up with: if he couldn’t talk, he’d have to run.

As he approaches the edge of the first town, Stiles swaps hoodies and stuffs a couple T-shirts underneath to bulk himself up. He slouches more, changes his gait. If he gets caught on camera anywhere, he doesn’t want anyone to associate this guy in a hoodie with the guy in a hoodie from the town where he got out of the truck. He’s feeling ready to drop and would love some actual food, or just to sit in a padded seat for half an hour, but he pushes on.

He tries to remember the plots to his favorite novels, favorite movie scenes, anything. But it’s no use. By the time he’s maybe halfway to the next town, he’s already exhausted his list of safe things to think about. He’s exhausted. Bone weary. And the dark thoughts come crowding in. Maybe he didn’t try harder to evade the fight because he wanted to hurt someone. Wanted to lash out. Wanted to unleash his loneliness and frustration and anger on someone. And those douches only deserved it a little. Maybe he’s just a violent person at heart. Maybe Scott was right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elements_(song)>
> 
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruces%27_Philosophers_Song>
> 
> <http://www.teachertube.com/video/fifty-nifty-united-states-35821> (omg, the images are out of synch with the names being sung--evil!)
> 
> \-----
> 
> Ok, so, I haven't slept yet and I'm headed to the airport in less than 5 hours, so I hope this chapter is readable. I'm having houseguests this weekend and a ton of family stuff going on over the next couple weeks. I'll try to maintain the chapter-a-day pace, but I don't know if that's sustainable during all this. Also, I'm sure the (already iffy) quality of proofreading and word choice will suffer. Sorry. I'll go back and patch things up when I can. 
> 
> Speaking of word choice, one of the things I find frustrating about trying to keep this pace is that I'm sacrificing some style for speed. I probably don't vary my language enough or say things using interesting enough phrases most of the time, focusing more on the angst and what little plot there is. I'm pretty sure I can do better. So when this part of the story's over, I may go back through and tweak things a bit to fix that. Not change the plot or anything. But maybe give things a bit more flavor. That might be a good side project while I work on part 2 of this series. Or maybe I'll get sucked into a new LGBTQ Days story instead. Who knows?!


	11. The Darkness Inside

Stiles considers for the first time that maybe he didn’t leave all the monsters behind in Beacon Hills. Maybe one of them hitched a ride out inside of him. Maybe the Nogitsune had rotted him at the core and he’d never be rid of the darkness inside him. Stiles wonders if he deserves to be arrested. He feels like he probably deserves _punishment_. He _hurt_ someone. Someone _died_ because of him. And not just while he was possessed. 

On _good_ days, he gives himself a pass on Donovan. He was fighting for his life--and his dad’s--against someone stronger who had a clear vendetta and would just. keep. coming. until he was locked up or stopped permanently. Stiles had been alone with only a wrench and speed and a smidge of less-shitty luck standing between him and his own death in the school library. And, in the end, it was the luck that saved him more than anything he could take credit for. Or, more to the point, take the blame for.

So, yeah, he’s _mostly_ convinced that Donovan’s death was justified. An accident. It’s not like Stiles had personally impaled him. Or even meant for him to get impaled. Sure, in the moment he had _wanted_ Donovan dead. _So, so much._ But he didn’t actually run Donovan through with a pole. The dude just fucking fell. At worst, it’s probably justifiable homicide? A shit ending to a horrible situation. And Stiles had removed himself from that situation so it wouldn’t ever happen again--because, for serious, _that town is a constant fucking situation_.

So, on a good day, he thinks the Donovan experience itself--and the continuing nightmares from it--are punishment enough. But that scrawny guy and his broken arm … What fucking excuse does Stiles have for that? Fucking none. So maybe _someone_ needs to stop him in case he can’t stop himself. Because maybe Stiles can’t fight off the supernatural all by himself, but it’s becoming clear he’s not a fair match for other humans anymore, either. And now he’s here again, blood on his hands, choking on the mess left behind when his control slipped for just a minute. That’s all it took: one minute with his guard down and he sent someone to the fucking hospital. Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiit. 

He’s drowning in this guilt and there’s no one here to tell him it’s gonna be ok. No one to remind Stiles that _he_ used to be a savior of sorts. _He_ used to keep other people safe. _He_ used to fight the monsters and protect those he loved. But Stiles doesn’t know what to do with his own monster inside, and there’s no one here to tell him what to do. He’s alone in the dark with no one to shine a light. He’s drowning with no one to dive in and save him. 

He falls to his knees and pulls out his phone. He hangs his head for a moment before opening a text message and typing out: “I need you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These next few chapters are short because of where the most fun places to end the chapters are and also because I’m not very far ahead in my writing right now.


	12. Beginning His Atonement

Stiles stares with unblinking, unseeing eyes at the phone in his hand. He imagines sending the text. He imagines the possible responses: what did you do? where are you? are you ready to go home? Stiles isn’t ready to deal with any of them, though, so there’s no point inviting the questions. He cancels out of the message and forces himself to keep walking to town. Before he reaches the outskirts, he yanks out his extra padding and stuffs the T-shirts back in his bag. He unzips his hoodie but keeps the hood up to shield his face.

Instead of checking into a motel, he heads straight to a gym. He gets a day pass and enjoys a full twenty minutes of showering off the dust from his journey before jumping into the boxing ring. He keeps his hood up for the fight, hiding the bruise that’s already showing there. His opponent shoots him a weird look, waving a glove toward his face and saying it’s gonna screw up his peripheral vision, make him a worse fighter. When Stiles just lifts his gloves in front of his face and doesn’t move, she shrugs and throws the first punch.

Stiles halfheartedly weaves and blocks for a few minutes, enough for show, but he won’t let any of his own punches land. He takes punch after punch but waits until plenty of people are watching before letting her hit him right in the black eye. He feels like he deserves each hit. Welcomes the pain. Like he's beginning his atonement. When she gets him good in the gut, too close to the cracked rib, he taps out and just lies on the mat gasping for air.

Now if his bruises draw any attention in town, he can explain them away easily. He’s half a foot taller than the woman who knocked him down. People are likely to remember it if he needs them to back up his story. And if this pint-size fighter could take him down, clearly he couldn’t be some bat-wielding badass on the run from the cops. Aching and a bit self-satisfied, he goes in search of a cheap-ass motel. 

When he drags himself to the motel desk, Stiles points to his eye and pantomimes boxing. It’s enough to satisfy the clerk, who probably doesn’t give a shit what goes on in the motel anyway, as long as no one calls the cops. The clerk had barely even looked away from their horoscope during check-in, and that was only to light another cigarette. They might remember the bruise, but they sure won’t remember his face. 

Stiles grabs the room key, buys a couple sodas from the machine, pisses, showers again, and crashes for the night. In the morning, it’s computer time again. He’s afraid to find out whether the broken arm had caught anyone’s attention, but it’s always safer to know. Things always seem to turn out shittier when he doesn’t have all the relevant info. So he blows out a breath, sits down a little gingerly on the bed, and hopes for the best. As he’s reaching into his bag for the computer, he remembers this shithole doesn’t have wifi, so he can’t really use it for much until he gets to a library. He has some Latin and ASL videos downloaded he can practice with, at least.

Turns out the lack of wifi doesn’t matter anyway: dudebro’s boot had crushed Stiles’s fucking laptop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy crap, y’all. There are over a hundred of you who have subscribed to this story. That … I … my brain can’t even … Wow! THANK YOU. You’re amazing. All of you who comment/subscribe/bookmark are why I keep pushing myself to write this every day. When I don’t have confidence in myself, I borrow yours and keep writing and revising. A million thank-yous!


	13. The Bottom of a Whiskey Glass

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I bailed on some family time today and got some more writing done. And I love y'all so much that I'm giving you a bonus chapter today.

Fuckity fuck fuck fuck. It’s not like he fucking _needs_ his computer. It’s not like it’s the _only thing of value he owns_ other than his actual money. It’s not like it’s fucking _integral to his continued independent existence_. 

He surveys the damage: keyboard’s cracked, screen is shattered on the right side, won’t boot. He reminds himself that it could be worse. It _could_ be worse. A lot. He can afford a new computer, even though he won’t be working again for a while. If he can get someone to recover the hard drive for him, all he’d be out is a little time, a bit of money, and some worry. He’s kind of afraid to find out whether the hard drive recovery is possible or not. He reminds himself that _he has to try_. But not today. Stiles has just woken up, and already today has sucked more than enough. More bad news might send him into shock. He just can’t.

He decides it’s time for more boxing instead. He throws himself into it and allows himself a much better showing this time. He hopes he can train himself to use appropriate amounts of force in the future. He’s got some new bruises and can’t help pressing on them just so he can feel it. The pain helps focus him. Grounds him in his body instead of his head. He goes back to the motel for a shower, a shave, and a quick nap before going out to bury his computer woes at the bottom of a whiskey glass.

He arrives at a dark dive bar with a note saying “Concert last night. No voice. Brutal mosh pit. Cheap whiskey rocks double.” The bartender laughs and says the shiner’s hot. They plunk down the glass, point to the notepad, and ask what concert. Stiles rolls his eyes and slaps his money down on the bar. He takes his drink to a table and ponders going back to bland interactions that don’t invite further questions. Especially when he’s lying. He’s hoping people in this town are focusing on the bruises and not focusing enough on the rest of his face, which would help keep him anonymous. Here and at the gym. It made sense to him, but he doesn’t fucking know if he can trust his own judgment at this point. 

When he finishes his drink, he braves the nosy bartender to get another. They wink at him, saying they’ve always found booze to work better than aspirin. Stiles gives a half-smile in agreement. He sits at the bar for the second and third drinks since the questions seem to have stopped and the bartender is easy on the eyes. They’ve already looked their fill, so they’re either going to remember him or not. And Stiles _is_ trying to learn how to be a person again, right? He’s feeling just a touch fuzzy and warm, definitely better than he has since stepping out of the library after ASL class. By drink four, Stiles’s eyes are sparkling and his smile is relaxed--but he misses nothing happening around him. _Never again_.

The bartender mentions they’re going on break and, hey, there’s a new shipment of whiskey in the office they’ve been meaning to try--much better than this bottom shelf shit. They give him a meaningful look and tilt their head toward the back in invitation. Stiles has never forgotten how to do this kind of communication, at least. Maybe because it never means anything to him. He never really pursues it, but on shitty days when someone’s offering, he’s down. So he nods and follows them to the back. The whiskey is good. The bartender’s mouth is better. But even in this Stiles is silent.

Afterward, Stiles rubs a thumb across their swollen bottom lip and gives them a lazy smile before walking away back to the motel. He walks slowly, careful not to draw any attention for public intoxication. And he sure as shit can’t risk another fight. He makes it back to his room without incident and throws the locks, stumbles to bed, and sleeps soundly through his nightly demons.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m on Tumblr if you want to come find me. I post about fics and reblog pretty TW photos, feminist rants, LGBTQ-rights stuff, cute animals, and shit about musicals. Look, it’s named Totally Random for a reason, ok? [totally0random.tumblr.com](http://totally0random.tumblr.com)


	14. No News Is No News

When Stiles pulls himself back to consciousness ten hours later, the percussion section in his head makes it clear he might not be up for dealing with computer shit today either. Eyelids slitted open, he turns the tv on low and surfs the local news channels while chugging a soda to wash down the pressed cardboard calling itself an energy bar. He chases “breakfast” with four ibuprofen[1] and hopes the throbbing in his face goes away soon--oh, hey, it’s keeping time with the thundering bass inside his skull. Ugh.

He’s relieved to see nothing pertinent on the news so far. Not that he thinks it’s likely anyone would be looking for him out of state about the fight. Still, he lets himself enjoy the comfort of a lack of bad news for a minute. Well, personally bad news. News shows are the worst. Like 50% actual disasters that are really disheartening, 30% shit designed to scare people but doesn’t actually matter or is super minor compared to the emphasis they’re giving it, 10% celebrity bullshit, 5% shit people should actually know about and maybe can actually do something useful about once they know, and then 5% cheery human interest stuff to try to keep people from committing violence against themselves or others because of the other 95% of the news. 

He has to remind himself that _no_ news isn’t _good_ news. No news is _no news_. He needs to figure out what’s going on in Beacon County. But, ugh, not until tomooooooooooooooorrow.

He swallows a few cups of water and keeps flipping through channels until the throbbing eases up. He stretches a bit to test out his healing. Getting laid and a night of dead-drunk sleep certainly helped his aches and pains.

He’s definitely not up for going back to the gym, though. And he doesn’t want them to remember the details of his face anyway, just wants to be able to use it as an alibi for the bruises if he needs one. He’s pretty fucking sure that bartender wouldn’t say anything. They totally dug the “dangerous” vibe, plus they blew a customer while on the clock. So, yeah, Stiles isn’t worried about them. But, anyway, no gym and no more booze for a while.

Stiles does need to move to keep the soreness out, though. He bends and rotates and lunges to limber up for a while. When the headache wanes, he starts an isometric workout he can do in the tiny motel room.[2] He finds that push-ups are tolerable today, but sit-ups are definitely off the rotation for a while. Night running is off the table, too--while he’s being kind to himself, anyway. He slogs through as much as he can and then falls back on the bed, panting for a few minutes. He should do a real cool-down. Instead he just lies there and tries not to think for a few minutes.

The worries pop back up too soon. Since he can’t fucking face the computer problem right now, he decides it’s time to deal with his other baggage. He pulls out his pack of postcards and stares at the wall for a few minutes, just tapping the pen in time with his heartbeat.

He writes: “5 maybe-drunk jerks jumped me for no reason. I’m healing ok. I think I broke a guy’s arm. I didn’t mean to.” 

He stares at it for a moment, imagining what it would feel like to share this burden. Would his dad comfort him? Or would he tell Stiles to turn himself in? Would he use the postcard as evidence against him? He rips it up, writes another.

“I’m tired of running. Would you stay away if I asked?”

But he’s pretty sure he knows the answer. He tears this one to pieces too. He opens the windows, blocks the smoke detector with a wet washcloth, and sets the bits of paper on fire in the sink.[3]

He looks at the pile of unwritten postcards for a second then turns back to the bathroom and gives himself a buzzcut.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1] So, 800 mg of ibuprofen is a lot. More than anyone should take on a regular basis. It’s probably ok for recuperating from a root canal or dealing with occasional severe menstrual cramps. But, really, medical advice isn’t something you should accept from fic anyway.
> 
> [2] [en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isometric_exercise](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isometric_exercise)  
> [3] I have no idea if the washcloth thing works. Be careful when setting shit on fire, ok?


	15. Yes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Syrian refugee situation is utterly heartbreaking. Read Neil Gaiman’s statement about it, and give if you can.
> 
> Neil’s post about the crisis: [journal.neilgaiman.com/2015/09/how-to-help-your-family-and-save-lives.html](http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2015/09/how-to-help-your-family-and-save-lives.html)
> 
> Donate to the UN Refugee Agency: [donate.unhcr.org/international/general](http://donate.unhcr.org/international/general/)

Before he leaves town, Stiles does manage to scratch out a message for his dad and drop it in the mail for an invisible internet friend to send: “Sucks moving all the time. Hope you’re ok. I’m not but I will be.” He’s not sure he believes it yet, but he’s trying to. It would probably help a lot if he could just stop running and settle somewhere for a while. But today he’s on the move again.

He stops at an IHOP to mainline a pot of coffee and a pile of the fake-maple-syrup-delivery-devices they generously call pancakes.[1] He overhears some stoners at the next table talking about driving to a nearby city for a skate shop at some mall. They moan and whine for a while about the shop selling out to corporate America and how it sucks that they have to be seen at a mall because malls are so gross. Stiles rolls his eyes, noticing the two skaters facing him are both wearing shirts they probably got at Hot Topic.

He scarfs down the rest of his food, throws down some bills, and wanders up to their table. He slouches and tries to seem closer to their age, glad that he had shaved off his hair already because it definitely makes him look younger. He lets his eyes unfocus a bit and tries to look chill in a way he hasn’t actually been in years. He smiles lazily and shows them his note about the moshpit and another saying he’ll pay for their lunch if they’ll give him a ride to the mall. Stoners fucking love free food.

Stiles tunes out their teenage bullshit during the car ride, glad he’d gone with the mosh excuse instead of pretending his bruises were from skating. That would have led to lots of questions, so this is much better.

When they get to the mall, he throws the skaters a peace sign and wanders away to find the Apple store. He weaves through the mishmash of people at the mall, enjoying the incongruities for a minute. It’s such a weird mix of geriatric folks in track suits (for serious, why do old people think the mall is a place to do laps?), bubbly teenagers flirting awkwardly, sulky teens pretending not to care, workers looking like they’re counting down the seconds until their next break, and some people actually shopping. Other than food and the Apple store, there is nothing Stiles would ever want here.

Turning down the hallway, he notices a commotion up ahead. Some young women are backing away from a frantic man. Stiles looks around to see if anyone is going to step in to help them. There are a few gawkers, but no one seems willing to help. Stiles takes one look at the women clinging to each other and marches right up to place himself between them and the guy. They thank Stiles and head away quickly in the other direction.

The guy mutters something that sounds like “help” and grabs his shoulders. Stiles goes rigid, refusing to let himself move unless the danger escalates. He’s pretty sure this man is human. _He will not hurt the human_.

Now that the man has his attention, he repeats “help” as he signs the word. Stiles stops breathing for a moment. Shit shit shit. He looks at the distraught man, at his pleading face. He swallows hard then nods as he signs “yes.” The guy doesn’t say anything else for a moment then starts frantically signing. His hands are moving way too quickly for Stiles to catch much more than key words like “son” and “deaf” and “help.” 

Stiles asks him in broken ASL: “Your son is l-o-s-t? He's deaf?” His heart sinks when the man signs, “Yes. Yes. Help.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1] [ihop.com/menus/main-menu/signature-favorites/rooty-tooty-fresh-and-fruity](http://www.ihop.com/menus/main-menu/signature-favorites/rooty-tooty-fresh-and-fruity)


	16. Letting Down His Defenses

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Show of hands, please: Who wants me to take a break from this fic to finish up a one-shot Sterek fic for the [LGBTQ Days](http://archiveofourown.org/series/278988) series? It's for Ace Week with Stiles thinking Lydia is asexual, but so far the story only has Stiles and Derek in it. It needs work. Right now it's just Sterek with a Lydia cameo at the end. So, there's that. Or I could just keep going with these Derek-less chapters so we get to Derek sooner in this series? (Soon _er_ but definitely not _soon_.)

Stiles isn’t sure he can do this. But he can’t let himself _not try_. He signs to the terrified father, finger-spelling excruciatingly slowly when he doesn't know a word, “Let’s go to security. I will try to translate. Ok?” The man nods wildly and signs his thanks. He looks like he’s about to hug Stiles but instead just signs a lot of things at him, and much too quickly for Stiles to follow. Stiles tells him to wait until they get to security and that he can’t understand him signing that fast. The guy frowns but follows him, hands in fists to keep from trying to sign anything else.

Stiles feels like his heart is going to explode. He can’t believe he’s actively seeking out a security guard instead of evading one! He’s well aware that his face is still all bruised to hell. _What the fuck is he doing?!_ He just hopes the guard will be too distracted by the missing child to worry too much about Stiles and his busted-up face. And even if the guard finds him suspicious, he hopes the same hope he's been relying on for days: that they'd remember his bruises and not the face hiding beneath. _Not the point right now._ A child is missing. _Stiles has to help._

As they walk to the mall’s security office, Stiles tries to make himself speak, but no sound will come. He sighs and goes ahead and writes up some notes to give the guard as soon as they get there: “This man’s son is missing here at the mall.” “Both of them are deaf.” “I know some sign language but I have laryngitis so I can't talk." "I can translate what you say to him.” “Some things will be easier to write down.”

When they get there, a security guard with a name tag that says “D. Pérez” looks at them warily and asks how he can help them. Stiles is bruised and grinding his teeth. The other man is practically shaking out of his skin. It’s clear that Pérez is assuming they’re there to report a fight. Stiles just wants to dump the father there and run away rather than deal with anyone in authority, even if it’s just at the level of mall cop. But he can’t because the father seems 5 seconds away from a panic attack. So Stiles just unclenches his jaw to offer a polite but fake smile while handing over the pages he’d torn from his notepad. Pérez’s eyes go wide but he stands up straighter and tells them to please explain the full situation.

The conversation isn’t easy. The father is deeply shaken, so it’s hard for him to calm down and sign slowly enough for Stiles to understand--especially with his limited vocabulary--but he’s also too keyed up to be able to stop and write things down himself, so Stiles does his best to take dictation. Of course, he has to look down to write, so the father has to keep repeating himself. The man occasionally stops to stare into the distance or sobs into his hands, so Stiles has to keep touching him lightly on the arm to get his attention. Other than the street brawl, this is definitely the most non-sexual physical contact Stiles has had with one person in years.

They somehow muddle through this excruciating conversation with Stiles’s barely adequate signing of most of the guard’s questions and then writing down the father’s signed reply for the guard. As he becomes more confident that they're going to help him, the father takes the pen to scratch down some corrections, but his hand is still shaking too much to handle this whole conversation by himself.

Stiles's ASL is so spotty that everything is garbled and he has to ask lots of follow-up questions. It all seems to be taking _forever_ , and the man is starting to get more agitated again, starting to sign “hurry” over and over, which Stiles finds very distracting. He just hopes this conversation is actually going much faster than it feels and the boy won’t be scared and alone for long. 

Even though Stiles is dealing with a “cop” for the first time since fleeing California, and even though this is a crisis, he feels calmer than he has in months. He’s _helping_. He has a purpose outside himself, even if it’s just for a short time. It was ok when he was working. That was productive, at least. Not helping the greater good, but at least contributing. But now he’s doing something positive in the world again. In a way that only he can. Or, well, in a way that he can and others at this mall most likely can’t. He’s not an interchangeable cog. Right here, right now, _Stiles matters_.

It’s been almost two years since Stiles has felt like his existence has been a good thing. Those warm fuzzies combined with the adrenaline pouring through his veins? The feeling's intoxicating. He doesn’t even realize he’s letting down his defenses until the guard asks them to write their names down, and Stiles automatically gives his real name.

Oh, fuuuuuuuuuuuck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Holy crap._ Y’all are amazing. THANK YOU for all the kind words and encouragement. It’s amazing and overwhelming and I am just so grateful.  <3 <3 <3 <3 <3


	17. Epic Error

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everyone who commented on the previous chapter voted for me continuing this story instead of pausing to finish up a Sterek fic with ace Lydia. 
> 
> I have the (short) chapters (mostly) ready to post through Sunday now, which is good because I'll be at an out-of-town wedding all weekend and then seeing Taye Diggs in _Hedwig and the Angry Inch_ on Broadway. I hope to get a good chunk of writing done Thursday, and then if all goes well I'll be back to posting longer chapters starting next week. 
> 
> OMG, you definitely want to [click here](http://assets-s3.usmagazine.com/uploads/assets/articles/88763-taye-diggs-glitter-makeup-hedwig-and-the-angry-inch-photos/1435253718_taye-diggs-hedwig-and-the-angry-inch-zoom.jpg) to see a photo of Taye in the Hedwig makeup. Here are [more photos](http://www.playbill.com/news/article/muscles-and-middle-fingers-watch-a-toned-taye-diggs-sexy-electrifying-first-bow-as-broadways-new-hedwig-353997), with him as Tommy Gnosis (i.e., in tiny shorts and bare chested). I'm really sad the show's closing. It's one of my all-time favorites. After this weekend, I'll have seen all the Yitzhaks plus all of the Hedwigs except for Darren Criss (sorry, Blaine).

Stiles notices his epic error about ten seconds too late, and by then he’s totally fucked.[1] There’s nothing he can do to take back his name now.

He zones out for a minute, lost in his own fear, but snaps back to attention when the guard says his name. His actual name. It’s weird hearing his real name after so long. And kind of awful. Especially that it’s happening now, like this. Running away right after giving his name would look stupidly suspicious. Stiles may be panicked but he’s not stupid.

He tries his best to smash down his fear and force himself to focus on finding the lost child. One crisis at a time, he chides himself. One crisis at a time. One crisis at a time. And the child needs help more than Stiles does. This child needs his father to find him more than Stiles needs his own father not to. _One crisis at a time._

The man tells them this hasn’t happened before, so he doesn’t know what to do. Then he stops and shakes his head, signing that he does know what to do. The family has a plan for this. Of course they have a plan; he just panicked and ... He takes a deep breath and writes out the family's emergency plan. The three of them awkwardly work out how to carry out the plan for reuniting the family. Stiles is relieved he doesn't have to do much at this point. He’s pretty brilliant at battlefield planning, but in some ways this is scarier than facing werewolves with just his bat. He's always been more scared for others than for himself anyway.

An announcement is broadcast to the entire mall. It asks everyone to help them find a lost child and bring him to a phone in the nearest store. They give the child’s name and physical description, mentioning that he's deaf and communicates through sign language, or writing if they use small words. They say his father is waiting for him at the security station. 

The announcement encourages everyone who has paper handy to write down these words to show to the boy: “Come with me to the phone. The police will tell your dad to come get you.” They are reminded not to touch the child and not to force him to go anywhere with them. If the boy refuses to move, they should stay with him and ask someone else to have a clerk call the security office. If the child runs, they are to report the location of the last sighting and what direction the child was headed. They are reminded at the end of the announcement that the child is deaf and probably scared and then they repeat the words for people to write down. It's a good plan.

Once the announcement is made, the lights in the whole mall are dimmed five times in quick succession. This is a code the family had worked out to get each other’s attention in case of an emergency at home. Stiles hopes that the signal followed by an adult showing the boy a note will keep him calm until the father can go to him. The guard seems very impressed with the plan and says he'll make sure to have the supervisor review it to add to future protocol training. He apologizes for not knowing any sign language.

A half hour later, the family is reunited with lots of hugging and crying, some of which spills over onto Stiles, who finds it completely overwhelming. He takes deep breaths and accepts their gratitude as graciously as he can, making an extra effort by signing to the boy, “Your dad loves you very much. Don’t scare him like this, ok?” The boy nods shyly and signs back, “Your signing is very bad.” That earns the boy a real smile from Stiles, who says goodbye and leaves.

He’s emotionally drained and needs to get the hell out of here, away from the report that might have his real name in it. He needs to put hundreds of miles between himself and this place. He’s both the happiest and the most scared he’s been in a while. But he’s relieved to know that when it matters, he can do what he needs to do. He can talk to people now. It might be with ASL or on paper, but he can have a real, unrehearsed conversation now. 

Except, no. He did exactly what he was afraid of. In the heat of the moment, he gave _his real name_. In his panic, he lost his fucking head and now he’s afraid he’ll lose his fucking freedom. _This_ is why he won’t let himself talk. _This_ is why he won’t let himself get close to anyone. _This_ is why he can’t trust himself around people. Somehow his lack of a fucking filter strikes even when he doesn’t open his fucking mouth. Even the delay between thinking and writing hadn’t been long enough to keep him from FUCKING EVERYTHING UP. 

Stiles slips away while everyone is distracted. He wishes he could have stolen back the piece of paper with his name on it, but the guard had shoved all of that in his pocket when they went to make the announcement. And pickpocketing is not a skill in Stiles’s repertoire. Picking locks, yes; picking pockets, no.

So, he just throws the most fervent of wishes out to the uncaring universe that his name doesn’t end up in a report somewhere. And that if such a report ever exists that it never goes farther than this mall. He closes his eyes tight for a minute to calm his nerves and then gets the fuck outta Dodge.[2]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1] “Totally Fucked” is a fantastic song from the amazing musical _Spring Awakening_ : [youtube.com/watch?v=hZ9nozM83ng](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZ9nozM83ng)
> 
> The current [Broadway revival of _Spring Awakening_ , by the Deaf West company](http://www.playbill.com/news/article/radically-reconceived-broadway-spring-awakening-revival-sets-dates-heres-what-it-will-look-like-352762), has a combination of speaking & singing and signing roles for a mix of hearing and hard of hearing & Deaf actors. It looks fucking awesome. I can’t wait to see it at the end of this month. 
> 
> [2] The phrase “get outta Dodge” is from the old TV show _Gunsmoke_. Here’s one clip of the phrase: [youtube.com/watch?v=Qfy0cCTqAdY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qfy0cCTqAdY)


	18. Fucking Starbucks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I subscribed to my own updates to see how long it takes to notify people when I post something. It seems like it takes _forever_. Hours and hours. So I’m going to try to post to Tumblr right away when new chapters are up. If that interests you, you can find me here: [totally0random.tumblr.com](http://totally0random.tumblr.com/). (I might also post a lot of shit you don’t care about, but I’ll tag my fic update posts [#ao3fic](http://totally0random.tumblr.com/search/ao3fic).)

Stiles takes eight trucks in three days across two states before letting himself stop for a night. It might be overkill, but it helps keep the anxiety at bay. He’s desperate to check on Beacon County news because they might have heard about him _twice_ by now. He’s such a fucking idiot. He can’t believe he gave them _two_ new potential points of data for tracking him. After all this time being so fucking careful, how could he fuck up so much so quickly?

He showers and changes clothes at a TA truck stop[1] and trudges to town to find the library. He needs to use their computer to track down the nearest Apple Store.

He thumbs a ride to another mall, where an aggressively quirky “genius”--who is clearly a moustache wax enthusiast[2]--helps him pick a new laptop and a practically bomb-safe protective case. A few grand lighter and in desperate need of being _done_ with the overly bright and relentlessly cheery “Apple experience,” Stiles hits an independent computer repair shop to extract and assess the old hard drive for him.

He gives the technician a note saying he tripped and fell, smashing the crap out of his laptop. She squints at him and mumbles something about it looking like maybe he headbutted it. Stiles raises an amused eyebrow at her, and she flushes when she realizes he heard her. He just rolls his eyes and waves a hand for her to carry on. She can’t salvage anything from the hard drive. Of course. All the free Latin books and ASL videos and papers about hacking he’d spent hours tracking down and downloading are gone. Why the fuck hadn’t he backed those up? Stupid. _So stupid_. He wonders what else he lost. Can’t remember what else might have been on it. Can’t think much at all right now.

He makes sure to watch carefully as the technician runs a magnet over the hard drive and then physically destroys it with a hammer, too.[3] It’s like watching another bit of Beacon Hills slip away, and Stiles doesn’t know how to feel about that. Surprisingly ok, maybe? Maybe.

She winks at him and just for fun runs over the drive with her wheelchair a couple times too. He gives her a double thumbs-up and she grins, saying busting up worthless machines is her favorite part of the job. Stiles has to agree that it looks pretty satisfying. He’d absolutely love to smash some things right about now. He encourages her to demolish the rest of his computer too, since it’s well beyond repair.

Her boss seems horrified, because it’s violent and loud and there’s no real data-safety benefit to doing it. But Stiles pretends to be a clueless guy who demands the entire machine be destroyed or he’s not paying for any of the work. She has to hide her laughter behind her hand as her boss caves and tells her to proceed. She seems delighted to continue the destruction and pouts a little when she runs out of things to smash. Stiles gives her a round of applause. She bows and tells him she’d be happy to indulge his whims anytime. 

Stiles blushes and goes to pay. The thrill of destruction fades quickly, but he reminds himself to be glad the bestiary are encrypted in the cloud and on a tiny USB drive in his wallet. He takes the busted drive with him to toss in a random restaurant dumpster then goes back to the mall to grab an overpriced coffee at Starbucks that tastes like burnt dirt. Whatever, it’s caffeine. And he’s mostly here for the wifi anyway.

He sips it slowly to drag out his allotted time at the table. Sadly, this means he’s forced to taste the coffee. He’d rather just gulp it down in one go. But the fucking hipsters loitering in the corners are already giving him mega-bitchface as it is. When he’s done, he meanders back to the library to face reality. He’s already waited too many days to check whether anyone had reported him for the bat attack--and now the mall incident--but he just couldn’t bring himself to find out his fate at a fucking _Starbucks_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1] [ta-petro.com](http://www.ta-petro.com/)
> 
> [2] I once went up to an Apple “genius” and said: “Holy moustache wax, Batman!” He seemed amused at my comment and was super proud of his ’stache. He was actually really competent and helped me a lot. Man, that moustache was ridic. But good for him!
> 
> [3] Don’t take computer data security advice from fic. Duh.
> 
> \------
> 
> I know it's slow going and short chapters right now. I promise by Sunday, it will pay off. I mean, I think it does. You'll have to decide for yourself, of course.


	19. The Bro-Magnons’ Male Ego

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I may regret this on Monday if I haven’t gotten enough writing done, but here’s a bonus chapter today. :)
> 
>  _ETA:_ I had to fix the chapter title.

The walk to the library does nothing to calm him down. He makes himself walk at a reasonable pace, as always alert not to draw unnecessary attention to himself. He misses the days where his body felt free. Sure, he was clumsy and a bit of a danger to himself and others within flailing distance. But now he’s constantly body-conscious. It’s exhausting being this hyper-vigilant all the time.

Stiles is pretty sure that if he looked down he’d be able to see his heart escaping his ribcage. One foot in front of the other, he tells himself. Keep going. _Keep going_ he chants in his head until he reaches the library. It kind of looks like a castle, which is perfect because he feels like he’s marching himself to the dungeons. He throws the door open a little violently and gives the librarian a sheepish look in apology before slinking off to find a table near a power outlet.

Reading and accepting the terms of use feels especially slow today, but finally Stiles’s newborn laptop is online. He restores his bookmarks and downloads the bestiary from the cloud first. He’ll need them, no matter what happens. Plus it gives him another couple minutes before he might read something potentially devastating. It’s not stalling if it’s something he needs to do, right? He’s anxious to find out but also not anywhere close to ready to face whatever is waiting for him. He’s relieved to be here so he doesn’t have to wait any more to find out. But he’s also _not fucking ready_ to find out.

He punches himself in the leg. And again. It’s time. It’s _past_ fucking time. Ok. Ok. _Ok_. He connects to his dad’s home email first, to ease himself in. He doesn’t expect to find anything useful, and he doesn’t. Other than his dad desperately needing a better spam filter. He connects next to the Sheriff’s Station email, where he sees a message from Deputy Parrish with a file attached. It’s a spreadsheet with the relevant information from a collection of reports of violent crime around the country involving _baseball bats_. His dad has had Parrish compiling that information, it seems. God, Stiles had been so fucking _obvious_.

Stiles’s fight _is_ included in the report, but the incident isn’t flagged for the Sheriff’s attention. That’s … odd. He wants to laugh when he sees that the douches had apparently reported a “big muscular guy with freckles who might be a bodybuilder or know martial arts or something.” No wonder Parrish hadn’t bothered passing it up the chain to the Sheriff. By that description Stiles doesn’t even recognize _himself_. He has never been more grateful for the fragility of the Bro-Magnons’ male ego than he is in this moment.

He makes note of the locations of the incidents Parrish had flagged as potential Stiles sightings and makes sure not to go there or send postcards from anywhere near any of them. He’s hoping to stay under the radar for the possible crime he _did_ commit. He sure as hell doesn’t want to become a person of interest in ones he _didn’t_. He doesn’t see anything else new of note in his dad’s work email, which is a relief. He wishes he knew how to get into his dad’s work voicemail. That was a major fucking oversight on his part that he regrets often.

Alright. Ok. So far so not-entirely-terrible. He’s a little surprised they don’t have the report from the mall yet. Maybe he’s lucky enough that it’s not the kind of incident that gets passed to local police, though? It was resolved quickly and there was no _crime_. Plus, he was just a bystander, a good Samaritan. Even if there was a report, Stiles might not have even been mentioned. Or the guy might have lost the paper with his name on it. There are lots of ways this could turn out ok, actually. Is it possible that his luck is turning?

All’s quiet on the western California front,[1] it seems. Stiles is feeling so fucking fortunate right now. The tension in his shoulders eases up. He just sits and breathes for a moment, smiling a bit and finally taking in his surroundings. Holy shit. This library is fucking _gorgeous_. Definitely the nicest one he’s come across so far. Maybe he’ll stay here for a while? Maybe it’s time. Maybe he can rest for a while instead of running.

Stiles’s heart rate is almost back to normal now and he’s feeling cautiously optimistic for a minute. Then he checks his own email and sees a message with the Google alert on his own name. Apparently the incident at the mall _made the local paper._ He thunks his head down on the table as he clicks the link.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy shit. This is past 17,000 words now, and there are still so many chapters to go! The total for all my previous stories combined is just over 20k words. This is so weird.
> 
> [1] [en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Quiet_on_the_Western_Front_(1979_film)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Quiet_on_the_Western_Front_\(1979_film\))


	20. Un-fucking Punished

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The wifi at this swanky hotel is like $16 a day. So I hope I haven't fucked anything else up, like posting the previous chapter with the wrong title. Argh.

It had clearly been a slow-ass news day in that fucking town because this “human-interest” feature about a lost child at the mall is like 1,200 words plus two large photos--one exploitive, clearly staged family photo of everyone signing animatedly at each other and another with the father, son, and the hugely grinning mall cop. It’s kind of gross the way they’re playing up the “problems” it caused in the search because the father and child were both Deaf. Yeah, no, that’s actually _completely_ fucking gross. There wouldn’t even be a story in the paper, probably, if a _hearing_ child had been missing at the mall for an hour. _So fucking gross_.

Aaaaaaaaaaaand, FUCK, the father is quoted thanking Stiles. _By name_. Well, mostly. Thank fuck they screwed up his last name. At least something good has come from having a long last name and failing penmanship in elementary school. But they got the “Stiles” right. And that name is _very_ not-common and therefore this is very _not-fucking-good_.

“I just panicked. We had a plan for when something like this happens, but this is the first time we've needed it. A young man named Stiles Shilinzki knew a little sign language and helped calm me down so I could talk to the security guard. I'm so grateful he stayed with us while we found my son. I don’t know how we could have done it so fast without him. When we made the plan I didn't think about how being scared might change things. If anyone knows Stiles, please tell him thank you. It was a relief to have someone there who knew some ASL (American Sign Language)."

Shit shit fucking shit. He won’t let the panic pull him under. He needs to keep reading and get all the facts. He need to fucking chill and finish reading this fucking article. It went on to describe ASL, detail the family's emergency plan (now saved on the family's phone to show to others), and the steps the mall was taking to handle incidents in the future.

Ok. Ok. On the plus side, there’s no physical description of him or mention of the faded black eye. There are no grainy photos from mall security cameras. Everything about him is positive. No one is going to try to hunt him down for doing this good deed, right? So it’s probably reasonable to hope this incident will stay unconnected to the bat fight. Because the douchebros never saw him signing, so there was no signing mentioned in that report. And from what Stiles read, the cops didn’t even investigate the fight, so there was no mention of what else took place in that general area around the same time. And surely no one would guess the big, freckly martial artist had come from an ASL class at the public library?

The original report from the bat fight doesn’t have any version of his name, of course. And the description of him in it wouldn’t match this family or mall cop’s recollection of Stiles. So … yeah … he can’t think of any possible way for someone to connect the two events right now. Yeah, yeah, that’s really good. Mostly good. The name thing is not good in general. But it could be worse? Thank fuck for the unreliability of witnesses.

But, shit, the fact that his (partially mangled) name is connected to sign language now gives his dad another parameter to use in his search, and that will make it so much easier to track his movements if anyone sees him sign in the future. He’s used ASL in only two towns, and they were both the ones where he caught the attention of the authorities (if you can loosely call mall security that).

But his dad will wonder why he’s speaking ASL at all now. If he assumes Stiles is pretending to be Deaf, he’d have to also assume Stiles is writing notes to people who don’t sign. Seriously, though, how fucking douchey would it be to pretend to be Deaf? He’s offended that his dad would even think that of him! … Wait, what was he thinking about? Right … he’s been writing notes to like every fucking person he’s met since leaving Beacon Hills. So, so, so fucking many towns all over the country. FUCK. Yeah, he’s probably totally SOL. Eventually. Maybe.

But not immediately. Not right now. It will take time to put any of that together, even if everything conspires against Stiles and they do make all the right guesses and then gather enough pieces to find a pattern. Not that there’s been much of a pattern, really. Or, he tries not to have one, anyway. He has places he won’t go. Or won’t go within a certain amount of time from when he’s been somewhere else nearby. But he doesn’t have a concrete plan. He makes sure to leave a lot up to serendipity. So, that’s still a solid idea.

But they do know the towns his postcards are coming from. … They’ve already shown his photo around, he has to assume, but they might go back and ask about someone speaking ASL or writing notes in those towns. That’s not any worse than before, right? Because he hasn’t actually been to any of those places. Ok.

His mind is following dozens of possibilities to their logical conclusions, looking for pitfalls, but the more he worries, the less he can think. He gets it now why the kid's dad had panicked. Anxiety really fucks with your head.

Stiles forces himself to sit there and do some follow-up googling, but he doesn’t find anything else online with his name or about the kid at the mall. He adds an automated Google search for “Stiles Shilinzki” in case the story gets picked up and spread past the dinky town paper. And that’s where he gives out. Now that he’s past the initial shock, his brain is shutting down. He’s incapable of any further rational thought right now, so he just sits there and starts downloading some of the more important resources he lost with the demise of his old laptop.

As the downloads chug along, Stiles grinds his teeth and thinks: _No good fucking deed ever goes un-fucking-punished.[1]_

When the last download finishes, he snaps back to the present, deciding he needs some air. And movement. Something _physical_. Something to tire him out so he can sleep tonight instead of lying in bed thinking and thinking and thinking all night.

He walks for two hours straight, just getting to know the new town, finding the security cameras, noting the diners and fast food places he might want to eat, seeing which motel he might want to check into next--the one he crashed at last night was kind of … not restful. He’s got no problem with sex workers, but these local johns were fucking _loud_ and the walls were like tissue paper. 

He decides that if his road trip is about to come to an involuntary end, he wants to enjoy his final days on the ground, not cooped up in a truck listening to boring road stories and oldies songs. This is as good a place as any, right? And any place with a great library is better than most. 

When he stops his wandering for the evening, Stiles realizes he’s led himself back to the computer repair shop. And it’s just before closing. Seems like a hint? He goes in and asks the demolition technician if she wants to get a drink with him. She looks skeptical and says it depends on how he got the black eye. 

“Minor mishap getting into position for the Butterfly,” he writes with a wink.[2] She doesn’t know what that is, but after the bar she takes him home and he enlightens her. Twice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1] [en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_good_deed_goes_unpunished](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_good_deed_goes_unpunished)
> 
> [2] The Butterfly is a position from the Kama Sutra. Check out [an illustration](http://www.sofeminine.co.uk/relationships/album856252/sex-positions-kamasutra-sex-positions-21211676.html).
> 
>  _ETA_ : I reworked the mall scene and references back to it to be (I hope) less ableist and hearing-dude-savior-ish. I hope it worked? I feel bad about having written it that way. But when we know better, we do better. Right?


	21. Surprising and Easy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope this development was worth the wait.

Stiles had stumbled home relaxed and then slept through all the nightly yelling and moaning. When he wakes up, he feels sore in all the right places. The sex was _good_. Really good. And fun. There was some trial and error, and laughter as they figured it out. But also, they had actually sat together at the pub for an hour before hooking up. They shared dumb stories, especially about people who don’t know how to use computers. He had smiled a lot. And she was patient with him as he wrote things down and double-checked them before showing them to her. She never even asked him why he didn’t speak. Or why he still had his duffle with him. It was surprising and easy and so much less effort than dealing with everyone so far.

He realizes that he _liked_ spending time with her, and not just while they were getting off. It wasn’t just a means to an end this time. He might … want to hang out with her again? Not a marriage-and-white-picket-fence kind of thing. But still, it was a real connection. They had fun. Even with all the other shit going on--or maybe partly because of it--he liked feeling like a real person capable of intimacy and not just mechanical sex. And if he stays in town, it might be nice to have a friend here for when he’s feeling sociable. Or lonely.

Maybe it’s just the freedom of knowing that if they started a relationship, it wouldn’t really be his fault when it ends. Maybe that’s what makes it easy to think about seeing her again. Of course, he has no idea what her name is. Names aren’t something that’s ever mattered before. It might be super awkward to ask her again at this point … Oh, but it’s on her name tag, and the store is the only way he knows to get a hold of her anyway because they hadn’t exchanged numbers. He’d told her he wasn’t sure how long he was staying. She didn’t seem upset at the brushoff, but he got the impression she’d be open to seeing him again. He thinks more about it as he checks out and moves over to a decent hotel.

When he gets to the new place, Stiles locks himself in his room and tries to meditate. He’s never really done it before and he doesn’t really know how. Sitting still had never really been his thing, but he’d gotten used to it after all that time trying not to annoy the truck drivers who had been doing him a favor. He watches some instructional videos and drinks booze to speed this relaxation thing along. Then he closes his eyes and breathes deeply. He’s trying his best to chill before he starts what he’s really here to do. And he really needs this to fucking work. Or, like, it would be a blessing if the universe would like … bless him with the gift of this working. Something like that. Whatever.

Every time he tries to start his visualizations, though, he tenses up and has to do the relaxation breathing all over again. He feels like puking or going for a run or punching something. But he makes himself _sit_. He needs to fucking _do this_. Right fucking now. He needs to _speak_.

Writing things down, he had gotten himself into exactly the kind of trouble not talking was supposed to help him _avoid_. And continuing his silence when people back in Beacon Hills are going to find out soon about the sign language seems more dangerous than helpful. He has to blend in better now. He has to talk. He has to practice talking to the computer technician. Out loud.

Stiles hasn’t heard the sound of his own voice in a million years now. He’d woken up with a sore throat a few times. That could have been dehydration, sure, but it was probably from him yelling in his sleep. He certainly yells enough inside his dreams. Some of that may have gotten vocalized in real life. But even the occasional sore throats only lasted the first few months. He used to moan and grunt and whine in pleasure, but that had stopped too. He was paranoid about noises turning into words he didn’t want to slip out during pillow talk, so he stopped. All of it. And now he’s silent even when he’s alone.

Now he has to undo all those habits of silence he’d conditioned himself for. And he has to start _today_. So first … what the fuck should he do first? Maybe hum? That seems easy? Maybe. He turns on the clock radio and tries to find a station where he knows a song. He hasn’t payed attention to music much on the road. It’s been mostly oldies with the truckers, which he can take or leave. He stops on an Elvis tune he kind of knows and tries to relax his jaw. By the time he’s unclenched, the song kicks over to one he doesn’t know, so he surfs the dial some more until he hears someone singing about a heart of gold. The Eagles, maybe?[1] He’s probably heard this song enough times to hum along. Now he just needs to do it. Just needs to start. Just needs to …

He starts with a monotone. Just one long mmmmmmmmmmm note. He can barely hear himself, even though the radio isn’t up very loud, but he feels the vibration. He stops and starts again, trying more than one note: mmmm mmmm mm. Finally he tries to hum to the tune. By the end of the song, he’s sweating and a little dizzy. He shuts off the radio and lies down. He sobs into his pillow for what feels like forever until he shocks himself out of it by realizing _he can hear himself crying_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1] No, no, no. Neil Young sings “Heart of Gold.” <https://youtu.be/FFNqj3RGUuM>


	22. One Good Fucking Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here’s another bonus chapter because I got some writing done today. And for some reason feel like backing myself into a corner? Or maybe I’m just feeling in the giving spirit because my cousin is getting married today. But you’ll have to forgive me if Monday’s chapter ends up being a short one because I haven’t written anything for it yet! And tomorrow's update may be really late in the day, after I get home. I haven't reread or proofread it yet!

The next morning, Stiles has a hangover from crying. He takes too much ibuprofen, drinks a gallon of water, and connects to the hotel wifi. He’s not going to risk a panic attack in public if there’s new news about him. There isn’t any. And this time, no news actually feels like _good news_. 

When his headache fades, he goes for a loooooong run, then showers and heads to one of the diners. The technician is there with someone who must be a coworker because they’re in matching shirts. Ah, but no nametags. She waves him over but keeps talking and doesn’t introduce them, so Stiles doesn’t have to participate in the conversation. It’s technical hardware talk, and the coworker is in the middle of a tirade, so it’s not obvious at all that Stiles isn’t speaking. She’s leaving it up to him whether to reveal anything to her coworker.

It’s … _amazing_. She’s really kind of fucking amazing. And amazingly _kind_. It feels like the first moment of specific kindness he’s felt in years. Someone showing a kindness that’s unique to _Stiles’s needs_ , not just generically kind. He has to look down and blink back tears for a moment.

While the coworker is off in the bathroom, Stiles writes her a quick hello and thanks. She smiles and says she had fun last night, and he nods violently. She laughs and asks for his phone, adds herself as a contact. Yes! He has her name! And, clearly, an invitation to continue … whatever this is. At his own pace. He grins wildly and she blushes as she smiles back. He hides his notebook as the coworker returns, practically in mid-rant already. She tilts her head at Stiles, and rolls back from the table to let him slip out past her wheelchair. He’s finished eating so he just waves bye and goes to pay. He’s not sure the coworker had even noticed Stiles was there at all.

As he walks back to his hotel, it hits him that it’s been a good day. It’s already a good day and it’s only half over. And it makes him feel uncharacteristically optimistic. He texts the technician-- _Mary Kelly_ , he reminds himself--to ask if she wants to meet at the same pub the next night. She texts back that she’s actually busy the next two nights, but how about after that? He says ok. And he thinks it really might be. He thinks he might still be here then. And he might want to see her. And he might want to hang out in a pub surrounded by other people. And he might want to bring _Mary Kelly_ back to his hotel room. No, he can’t. His bathroom isn’t accessible. So, her place again for now, if she invites him. If this thing with them goes on beyond that, he might have to switch rooms. He thinks she’s probably worth the hassle.

Holy shit. Is he really going to do this? He’s going to stop here??? Holy shit. HOLY SHIT.

It’s too overwhelming to think about right now, on his _good day_. So he decides it’s time to get back into a routine. That’s always calming. He decides not to practice ASL for a while because that triggers anxiety now. He hides the ASL folder inside another one so he doesn’t have to see it.

He spends an hour on Latin instead. But he’s gotten rusty, so that was mostly just refreshing what he’d already learned. He’s feeling ok, so he adds an extra hour and actually learns some new stuff. He’s feeling _productive_. He’s feeling _good_. He’s also feeling a bit like he can’t keep all this positive energy inside his skin. It’s almost like he’s his old self … Nope, not thinking about that.

Before getting back to studying, he spends an hour exercising in his room. This is a decent hotel, so tomorrow maybe he’ll check out the gym. When his muscles are feeling all noodley, he hops in the shower again and then gets back to studying, reviewing his computer skills, which feel even more rusty than his Latin.

When his vision begins to blur, he takes a break for some stretching and jumping jacks. And then he forces himself to sit back down at the computer and evaluate his finances. Yeah, shit, if he’s going to stay more than a week in this town, he should really find somewhere cheaper. Somewhere it’s cheaper to pay by the week. Or maybe even a month? And a job. He definitely needs a job. For the money, yeah, but also so he doesn’t feel so cooped up. Maybe _Mary Kelly_ can give him some leads. (He WILL remember her name without having to look at his phone. He WILL.) But he still needs cash work, so maybe not. Hmmmm.

It hits him, then, that if he’s going to get a job, he has to start talking again. He can’t be that guy that doesn’t talk anymore if he’s going to be here and interact with other people. It’s almost enough to ruin his good day, so he pushes the problem off until tomorrow. He deserves _one good fucking day_. So he orders a pizza online to be delivered and watches a dumb movie. And then another one.

Feeling fat and something approximating happy, Stiles crashes early for the night. He’ll need plenty of sleep if he’s going to start tackling his demons tomorrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know some of y’all are not going to be happy with Stiles connecting with someone who isn’t Derek. Sorry. I didn’t plan it. He neeeeeeeds it, though. He needs this so much. He needs to come back to the world and to himself. And to do that, he needs people. 
> 
> So hang in there if you can. Or bail and come back for part 2 of the story if you want.


	23. Actual Words

Stiles starts the day singing along to the radio. Out loud. Actual words. Not on key, but that’s not a new problem, and quietly out of respect for other hotel guests. It’s easier than he expects today. Humming seems to have gotten him over the hurdle.[1] He’s a bit dizzy at how ok it is, and it makes him laugh. Again out loud. And then he can’t stop. He’s laughing so hard his eyes are watering, but he’s not crying this time. Instead of feeling exhausted, it feels like energy is rushing through him. He dries his face and goes to work off some of the energy, lifting for half an hour and then running a few miles. In the shower, he cries out when he comes. 

He’s feeling fucking amazing. And he has no one to share it with. He goes back to the diner, but it’s already after lunch. And he doesn’t want to bother Mary at work again. He can wait two days. And he should practice before then anyway. He had rehearsed during his run and he thinks he’s ready to try. 

“What can I get you, hon?” the server asks.

“Burger. Medium. Fries. Coke. Please.” 

“Ok. That all?”

He nods and smiles.

“Ok, sugar. Be right up."

He smiles again. The food is completely adequate but nothing stellar. He should try somewhere new for dinner. Maybe Taco Bell. Somewhere cheap. He needs to start eating cheap until he figures out the money situation. He finishes his meal and pays. When the server wishes him a good day, he says, “You too.” Pretty much exactly on script. He did it. He gets outside and leans against the wall, breathing deeply and laughing quietly.

He heads to the library to look up places to stay. There’s not really any info online, so he has to look in an actual phone book. Thank god for libraries, right?

He’s going to have to talk to people at the places to get prices and stuff. He’s not sure if it would be easier on the phone or in person. Either way it’s gonna suck. He’s got to the end of the week at his current hotel, so he decides this can be a project for tomorrow. It’s laundry day anyway. 

He decides he wants to take Mary to a nice place for dinner. But as he’s folding his clothes, he realizes that his current wardrobe won't allow that. So he has to go clothes shopping. So, a little talking, but not as much as housing shopping would be. He stands and breathes for a minute testing his energy and decides he’s ok trying. The conversation should be short and routine, like at the diner. Ok.

He buys a pair of khakis and a button-down shirt. He could use a second pair of jeans, but there’s not a ton of room left in his bag. Ditching the bat has helped, at least. He decides on a couple new shirts instead. They’re more compact, and no one cares if you wear the same jeans all week every week. But he’s going to need more shirts if he gets a job and doesn’t want to stand out. He buys 2 plain T-shirts and a super-soft Henley. He looks in the mirror and stares at how it fits on his newly buff body. So different from how everything would hang off him in high school.

The combination of Henley and high school makes him think of Derek suddenly. It’s a sucker punch, and he doubles over in the dressing room, breathing hard. He blinks away the tears and does some stretching to center himself back in his body. He decides to buy the Henley anyway. Exposure therapy, he tells himself. He wonders if he’s lying.

Before leaving the department store, he buys a backpack. He figures if he’s staying it will be less suspicious to carry a normal backpack instead of the duffle. There’s room for all his underwear and socks, a pair of jeans or khakis, and maybe four shirts. If he has to bail and leave the rest behind, that’s ok. But he doesn’t really have the funds right now to replace the computer again. Really, the rest is pretty cheap to replace … He buys a laptop bag, too. It’ll fit inside the backpack but he can also use it daily and no one will bat an eye. And there’s still room for some underwear in the side pocket.

Shit. Shoes. He doesn’t have any nice shoes for the date. But where the fuck would he put them? At least he hadn’t removed the tags from the backpack. He swaps it for one about the same but with big pockets on the outside that would fit a good-size water bottle on one side and shoes in the other. He buys a travel shoe bag so it won’t be so obvious that he might be carrying around all his worldly possessions.

He’s feeling pretty damn good right now. He thinks about texting Derek--or the number that might still be Derek--and saying he saw a Henley and thought of him today. But he can’t ditch this phone now because of Mary and that would be a dumb thing to say anyway. And he can’t initiate contact now after running so long. He’s not sure why it even crossed his mind today. It’s just been a strangely hopeful day. Not that “hopeful” is a word he’d ever associate with Derek. UGH. Enough thinking about Derek. This is _stupid_!

He doesn’t feel like studying, so he just goes back to the room and for the first time in a loooooooong time, he watches some porn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Omg, I'm so full of booze and sushi. Open bar at the wedding reception followed by [Drunk Shakespeare](http://www.drunkshakespeare.com) with some cousins and then sushi. Such a good night! 
> 
> [1] [en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurdling](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurdling)


	24. Not Being Weird

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m killing time in Bryant Park before _Hedwig_ , so here’s another chapter. :)

The next morning, Stiles has two packages of mini powdered donuts from 7-11 for breakfast, washed down with a Big Gulp of iced coffee, and then decides to spend the day at the library. He steels himself against the worry of leaving some of his stuff behind at the hotel, bringing just what fits in his new laptop bag. He checks in on Beacon Hills first thing, and no news is still good news. It’s a relaxing start to his day.

He sits for a while in the cushy chairs in the colored light from the stained glass windows and skims the local paper first then a national one. He scans some _Scientific American_ articles and reads _Wired_ cover to cover. In between, when he needs to move, he wanders the stacks just enjoying the smell of old books and running his fingers across the spines as he walks. He’s in a bit of a trance, just enjoying _existing_ in this beautiful library. He’s a little in love. He hopes wherever he ends up has a library like this. This might be spoiling him for any other libraries.

Today isn’t all for fun and games, though. He still needs a new place to stay. Or a new place _if_ he stays, anyway. He swallows his nerves and approaches the reference librarian. 

“Good morning. How can I help you today?”

“Um,” Stiles starts out haltingly. “I’m new here.”

“Well, welcome!” 

“Um, thanks.” He forces a small smile. “I’m at a hotel now but I need some place for longer and cheaper. I don’t know how to find that.”

“Well, what kind of place are you looking for? And for how long? I’ve lived here fifteen years, so I might be able to help.”

“Um … clean and not scary? Private bathroom. Renting by the week or month.”

“Hmmm. Let me make a few calls for you. Come back in an hour?”

“… Wow. Ok. Sure,” he says, not having expected them to do all the work for him. “Thanks.” He gives them a blinding grin and wanders off to look at the community bulletin board.

The librarian hands him a sheet with the names, addresses, and phone numbers of three possible places for him to stay. None of them have web pages, of course. He decides now is as good a time as any to go check them all out, rehearsing his questions on the way.

The first place is ok but a little more than he wants to spend. The second is cheaper. The third is too close to the woods and makes his skin crawl. He decides to visit the first two again tonight, to see what kind of people come and go during sleep hours. He needs to know how loud it is, too.

Exhausted and starving, Stiles finds a new place that has amazing cajun fries and calls the day a huge success. He tries not to dwell on how much he likes this town already. Getting attached seems like a _royally fucking stupid idea_.

Instead of entertaining stupid and scary what-ifs, he goes back to the hotel to study Latin for a bit and then works on coding for a few hours. He thinks he’s getting good enough to try to bid on some jobs through one of those online freelancing sites like Guru soon.

He has the best night’s sleep he can remember in a long time. And then it’s date-night day. Stiles is happy and nervous and excited and nauseated all at once. He makes himself go to the hotel desk and ask for a restaurant recommendation. He wants a place for dinner that’s nice but not too fancy. He’ll ask if Mary wants to go to the place they recommend or if she has a better idea. He wants to show her that he put some effort into the date, though. … Because he’s never _dated_ before. He has no fucking idea how to do this. He just wants to not be weird? That would be a huge improvement.

Not being weird is the main goal for tonight. When he leaves town, he wants Mary to have good memories of him, not weird ones that would stick out in a bad way. He doesn’t want her to forget him, exactly, but he doesn’t want people to be able to use her to find him, either. Ugh. This is not a great start to the day.

He goes for a run to clear out the unpleasant thoughts and then gets back to studying for a while. Then he hits the hotel gym for an hour and a half. He only has access to it for a couple more days, so he’s going to _use_ it. He pushes himself a bit too much, but it relaxes him just right. He jerks off noisily in the shower and puts on his nice clothes. He could use a haircut and maybe a new belt, but he thinks he looks pretty good. Definitely better than last time she saw him, anyway.

He texts Mary: “stil on 4 2nite? 7 at davios? im ok where & whenever u can pivk” and she writes back: “cool c u then.” He tries not to barf.


	25. Heart of Gold

“Hi Mary,” Stiles says as she comes in. She freezes for a moment then continues toward him as though nothing weird had totally just fucking happened.

“Hey. … I don’t really go by Mary. Mary Margaret or usually MK for short.”

Stiles thinks about that for a minute. Mary Margaret Kelly. He smirks, “MMK? Drugs are bad, mmkay?” She smacks him on the hip and rolls her eyes at him as the host shows them to their table and takes away the second chair to make room for her.

Stiles swallows and blinks wildly for a moment once they get settled. He takes a deep breath and asks, “How was work, Mmkay?”

“That’s going to get really old really quickly. Work was boring as hell. No one let me smash anything.”

Stiles chuckles quietly and relaxes. Until she says to him, a bit embarrassed, “So … You know my name but I don’t know yours.”

Fuuuuuuuuck. He somehow didn’t make a plan for this. HOW did he not make a plan for this? Or maybe this is a trick? Maybe he did give a name and now she’s testing him? But she doesn’t look like it? She just looks a bit flushed. She looks as awkward about this as he does. So, it’s probably ok. He can probably say whatever he wants and it will be fine, right? Probably. Ok. But does he want to give her the bland, impersonal name the hotel room is under? He’s leaving there soon anyway, so he can pick something better if he’s staying in town for a while. Maybe not his _actual_ name but _part_ of it?

“Marty,” he says quietly.

“You sure about that, _Marty_?” She gives him side-eye, but seems mostly amused by it. 

“… Trying it out. … Real one’s … long … and hard to spell. … So … um … I’m trying my middle.”

“Fresh start?”

“Yeah. Definitely.” He grins, feeling on more solid ground. 

They chat for a bit, eat some good food, hum along to the oldies songs in the background. Laugh. A lot, really. The conversation is getting easier, but he still has long pauses before speaking, always needing to rehearse so he doesn’t give anything important away. When “Heart of Gold” comes on in the background, Stiles practically chokes on his pie as he remembers his first stab at vocalizing.

“Not a Neil Young fan, Marty?” 

“… Who?”

“This song?”

“… Not the Eagles?”

“Seriously?”

“We were more of a Johnny Cash and Bee Gees family,” he blurts out before thinking. Fuck. _Fuck_.

MK snorts, ignoring the awkwardness of the outburst. “That’s quite a combo.”

“… Yeah.”

MK gives him a long look. Stiles braces himself for the invasive question that never comes. She just goes back to finishing her cake.

“… You’re … You … uh … you’re not gonna ask?” 

“Nah.” She smiles, and Stiles thinks she seems really weirdly ok with it?

“But why?” he blurts again before he can stop himself. He pinches himself on the leg as a reminder. 

“Because _you_ never do.” She clanks down her fork. “And … god … it’s so _nice_ , you know? Every new person always wants to know my life story and whether I’ve always needed the chair and _what’s wrong with me_ and … ugh. You know? It’s exhausting and _boring_. At least for me. Like, how many times do I have to tell that story? And, like, they think it defines me. Maybe it’s the worst thing that’s happened in my life and then why the hell would I want to talk about that with strangers over and over again? Or maybe it’s not a big deal at all. Maybe it’s just a thing I deal with. Like, everyone has to deal with _something_ , right? Maybe it’s like the same level of importance as … as growing up a ginger! Like, a bit different than most people but, like, who the hell cares? Like, I’m studying computer engineering and was captain of the debate team in high school and my little brother is my favorite person on the planet and I hate cilantro. Like, maybe all those things are _infinitely_ more interesting _to me_ to talk about. So, you know, it was just really _nice_ not to have you ask about all that shit. … So I figured it might be the same for you? Just because I notice something or I’m, like, curious about something, doesn’t mean I have the right to _know_ or that I should actually _ask_.”

Stiles lets out a loud breath. “You. are. fucking. amazing.”

“Damn right I am.” She winks at him.

He just grins at her, completely blank of things to say but really content in this moment.

“Look, ok? If you decide you _want_ to tell me anything--out loud or on paper or whatever--that's _great_. But if you don’t, that’s completely cool too. The past doesn’t matter most of the time anyway, right?”

“Hope so,” he says quietly.

She throws down her napkin and rubs her belly. “Ohmigod, I’m _stuffed_. Wanna get the hell out of here?”

Stiles just grins and signals for the check.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's good to be home! This is the end of what I have written so far. That's a little scary. But also kind of fun. Hopefully, I'll get a lot written Monday. I kind of hate posting without any kind of buffer. But I was excited for y'all to see the stuff I posted this weekend. Onward!


	26. Out of Words

“So, _Marty_ , where to now?”

“Oh. my. god. _Please_ stop saying my name like that. I’m never going to figure out if I like it if you keep _saying it like that_.”

“Sorry. Sorry. Ok. I just wanted to know if you want to continue the date or if you’ve had enough for today?”

“… I think … um … I think I … I might be,” he swallows loudly, “um … out of words?”

She looks sad. Maybe for herself. Certainly for him. Not pitying or annoyed. Just sad at the situation. He feels the same way.

“Oh. Well, uh. I don’t know whether you just mean literally you don’t want to talk or if you mean you’re out of spoons for the day? So I’m gonna give you two options, and both are completely fine, ok?” He nods. “So if you’re just, uh, out of social energy, go home, obviously. But if you want to keep hanging out tonight, we can catch a movie or you could come back with me and we can play video games. No talking needed.”

It’s a stunningly kind gesture. Somehow MK just gets it. It’s amazing and wonderful and maybe the best thing anyone could have said to him right now. He should feel _relieved_ , really. And yet he’s having trouble pulling in enough air.

He’s completely overwhelmed. The kindness feels oppressive, pushing in at him. Everything is just _too much_. Streetlights are blinding. Traffic sounds hit his ears like a full-on assault. He’s used to the calm and quiet of being alone. He can’t handle this much all at once. He looks at her with panicked eyes.

“Oh. Shit. Uh, are you ok to be alone?” He hangs his head but gives her a small nod. “Ok. But just stop here for a minute before leaving? I’ll stay over here for a minute if you need me?”

Stiles starts to cry quietly, and she repeats herself before walking away. After a minute, he sits down, head resting on his knees, arms wrapped so tight around himself he might lose circulation. When his eyes refocus, he can see MK dicking around on her phone, sneaking looks at him every once in a while to see if he's ok. When Stiles calms down, he sighs and walks over to her. He leans down and squeezes her hands once and lets go. She gives him a small smile and a nod and watches him walk away.

Later that night, Stiles sends her a text: “try again tmrw?” MK sends back: “txt during work. I’ll def be booooored.” He sends her back a smiley and crashes early.

Ten hours later, he’s still exhausted. He has a text from MK saying, “let me know dinner & movie or takeout & games. or postpone.” He doesn’t have the energy to even answer her right now. He figures that’s kind of an answer anyway.

He sleeps on and off. Misses lunch. Drags himself out of bed around 3 and makes himself check in on Beacon Hills. Thank fuck there’s nothing new there. He feels restless but doesn’t have the energy to go for a run. He’s hungry but doesn’t want to go out. Doesn’t want pizza. Doesn’t want anything, really. He drinks a glass of water and eats a bag of chips and calls it done.

He’s not up for studying. Not interested in porn. The whole day just feels like a giant NO. He turns the tv on low so it’s just a background murmur and lies on the bed, on his back, staring past the ceiling. After twenty minutes or an hour or three--he has no idea--he finally feels awake. Human.

He checks the email account again because he’s forgotten whether he already did that today. Everything looks fine. Hopefully everything _is_ fine. For now. His picks up his phone and texts MK, “sorry. shit. slept all day. tmrw?” A couple hours later, he gets one back. “txt next time u wanna hang.” He sighs. Could be worse. But it seems like a shitty way to repay her kindness last night.

He’s disappointed in himself. He doesn’t want to lose whatever this is with MK. She’s literally _his only friend_. And he’s not up for losing that again right now. He’s just now coming back to life after losing his first one.

He swings his legs back and forth and tries to figure out what to do next. He kind of wasn’t completely there for their conversation in the parking lot at the end of the night, but he remembers MK saying something about “social energy,” whatever that is. He’s not sure what it means, but he definitely hasn’t had any energy today. The laptop’s open anyway, so he googles it.

There’s something about adjusting your social energy to others’ at parties, which doesn’t seem like what she was talking about.[1] Did she say something about a spoon? That’s weird, right? Maybe he misheard. He googles “social energy” and “spoon” anyway and finds a Wikipedia entry about the spoon theory.[2]

 _Holy fuck_ it makes yesterday’s meltdown make so much fucking sense. Talking so much had taken all his energy. By the end of the date, even though it had gone so well, he had no “spoons” left to deal with his unexpected wave of emotions. 

He’s feeling mostly recharged now but still not quite back to normal. He checks out some more social energy pages and sees that someone says exercise can help, even if you don’t feel like you have the energy for it to begin with. He gives it a try. It’s … not great. He doesn’t get far. But running does take him out of his head, and that’s a good way to relax. It helps him sleep that night too.

The next day he wakes up and feels much better. His time at the hotel is up, though. So he has to decide: Should he stay or should he go?[3]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Clearly Stiles is reflecting my mood today. I’m ALL out of spoons, y’all. The wedding weekend was great, but holy fuck was that a fuck ton of togetherness and so. much. talking. I need a three-day nap right about now. Anyway, this chapter is almost all of what I got done today. And I have a ton of actual work to get done tomorrow. I don't know whether daily posting is going to work this week. But I should be able to post at least a short (maybe very short) chapter tomorrow. And then we'll see. 
> 
> [1] [socialpronow.com/blog/social-energy](http://socialpronow.com/blog/social-energy)
> 
> [2] The spoon theory is so fucking useful, y’all. And I was so fucking out of spoons today. If you don’t know what I mean, reading this is going to improve your life and your relationships so fucking much: [en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoon_theory](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoon_theory)
> 
> [3] He probably wouldn’t even know the song, but I couldn’t resist: [youtube.com/watch?v=oGIFublvDes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGIFublvDes)


	27. Silver Bullets

Stiles texts MK to ask if she can meet for breakfast. Checkout is at 11 tomorrow, so he needs to decide some shit pretty quickly. And maybe she can help. She writes back that she just got up but she can be there in an hour. That gives him time to review his game plan for the day. He’s not going to exhaust his spoons today. He has too much to do.

He tries meditating again, but, yeah, that’s still not his thing. So he takes a short run and gets cleaned up to meet MK.

“Hi Marty.” Stiles smiles in response. They settle and order and then just look at each other. He’s getting better at chatting with her and in talking in routine interactions with others. But when he needs to say something important or can’t figure out how exactly to say it, he still writes things down for MK sometimes.

Stiles takes a breath and just dives in. But cautiously. “Thanks. And sorry. … Um, the spoon theory was really helpful. … I’ll, um, work on it.”

“Oh. Uh. Yeah, that’s good. Are you feeling better today?” He nods. “Sorry if I … I don’t actually know what. But, uh, I’m sorry if I … contributed to … whatever.” He smiles and shakes his head. “Rationing your words today?” He smiles and nods. “Ok. That’s probably good. So, did you just want to share a meal today, or … ?”

“No. I …” He huffs and grits his teeth for a moment. “I need to decide … things … today. You can … um … help?” 

She purses her lips to stay quiet and just nods, leaving him room to talk at his own pace. “Hotel checkout is tomorrow. New place rents weekly. But better deal monthly. I need a job or something to do soon. Or … I need to move on.” He feels winded after all those words in a row. He slides a piece of paper over to her with the motel information and a list of his job skills.

“Work is, uh, good. This is a lot of kinds of, uh, options. … Wait, coding?”

“… Oh, um, probably not yet? I’m … working on it? Books.”

“Well, you’re in luck, McFly. I’m teaching a six-week Python class through the library this summer if you want to sit in. Mondays and Tuesdays until I go back to school.”

“I … yeah? I only know JavaScript? Some.”

“It’s mostly teaching coding concepts, which apply to all languages, but teaching it through Python. Might be too basic for you, but we’re already two weeks in, so maybe not. Uh, so the rest of your list. What’s your favorite of those things to do? Like, if you decide to get a job.”

“I like building shit.”

“Ok. So construction. It’s the end of summer, so I don’t know how easy that will be. But I’ll look into it. My dad’s been pricing some renovations, so I can see if any of the crews are looking for help.”

He grins. “… Renovation?”

“Roof needs reshingling. And he’s maybe going to put up aluminum siding.”

“What’s he do?”

“High school history teacher.”

“Ouch. You have him?”

“Yeah. It was ok. At least he wasn’t boring. We’re pretty tight. Mom is ... well, she moved out after the divorce. Last summer I just moved back in with him at the end of the semester, but this summer my friend needed a subletter while she’s in Italy. So I’ve been able to live like a real adult. Well, a real adult who still has dinner with her dad twice a week anyway.”

Stiles frowns and looks away. He recites the Greek alphabet in his head and tries to drag his mind out of the past and focus on the present. Because the present is good. Good- _ish_ anyway. It’s weird but kind of good having a tentative plan for the next month. A whole month. A whole month more in the same place. A place where he has someone to hang out with and talk to, when he feels up to it.

MK just sighs and invites him back to play video games for a while if he wants. And she waits quietly while he decides if he wants. 

She’s way better at the game than he is, but he’s never played Bloodborne before.[1] He’ll pick it up. He’s concentrating really hard on not fucking dying, so he’s maybe not paying enough attention on what he’s saying. There’s something about staring at a screen and talking smack that feels comfortable and familiar and relaxing. He’s having fun and the words are coming easily. Too easily.

“Are you kidding with this bullshit? Silver bullets _don’t kill werewolves_.”

MK pauses the game. “Uh, what?”

“Huh?”

“Silver bullets don’t kill werewolves?”

“Oh. Just. You know. Come up with something … new, you know? That silver bullshit idea is so … boring.”

“Uh, yeah. I guess. Who cares? The graphics are amazing.”

“Yeah. Totally. … I should go. I suck at this game. Play something else next time?”

“Sure thing. Text me tonight so I won’t be bored at work?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1] I know nothing about that video game. But the internet says it has werewolves in it, so ...
> 
> About this chapter:  
>   
> (Source: "Walk through the Fire" from _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ episode "Once More with Feeling," <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYmn4E-kPSo>)


	28. Hella Awkward

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enjoy the fluff! ;)

Stiles texts MK random weird facts all evening while she’s at work and he’s studying Latin:

  * bat can eat 3k insects/night
  * bald eagle nests weigh up to 4k lbs
  * applesauce 1st food eaten in space by us astronaut
  * strawberries > vitamin c than oranges
  * some1 paid $115,120 for lock of Elvis hair
  * sheep duck & rooster 1st hot air balloon passengers
  * honey doesnt spoil
  * hawaii has waterfall going up not down. def want 2c that 



She seems amused and offers a few facts plus tidbits from her childhood in response:

  * r2d2 actor thought c3po actor was a dick
  * uk dude changed name 2 tim pppppppppprice 2 fuck w telemarketers
  * moms a lawyer. her face is on billboards all over town. so sick of her face
  * dress code in 9th gr. my friends dressed goth as protest. detention for 2 mos b4 sch gave up. next yr no dress code
  * 7 dwarves almost called chesty tubby burpy deafy hickey wheezy awful. can that be real



Stiles writes back: “ha id be burpy scott wld be wheezy.” It’s ten minutes later when MK asks: “scott?”

SHIT. Shit shit shit. Ok. It’s ok? Yeah. Probably ok. Lotsa dudes named Scott. Yeah. Yeah, ok. He writes back: “friend from elementary school. lost touch after.” It’s a lie truthful enough to even pass the werewolf test. He adds: “I used 2 try burping alphabet. nvr got it all :( ” and thinks the slip might be a blessing in disguise. Sharing little things makes him seem less weird, right? Less secretive? More normal?

MK writes back: “srsly? I totes can burp it.” Stiles’s mouth falls open: “prove it. ill buy the beer” MK says: “k” and things seem to go back to normal.

Stiles switches from studying Latin to Python to get ready for MK’s next class. He’s a little worried about spending so much time with her, but he tries not to think about it too much.

Instead, he texts:

  * gorillas burp when happy
  * czech church has chandelier made of HUMAN BONES
  * opposite sides of die always =7
  * russia has > surface area than pluto
  * hippo milks pink



MK replies:

  * 1/2 of cds made in 90s were 4 aol 
  * to cheer me up in middle sch friend stole rolling chair from church office to race down hall. we collided. my chair tipped I broke my arm. he ruined church chair. took 2 mo 2 work it off 



***

The Python classes go well. Stiles even helps out some of the other students sometimes. Like a cool graphic designer named Adnan who’s hoping to make a video game eventually and wants to know enough about programming to be able to talk to whatever coder or developer he ends up working with. They go out after class one night and talk _so_ much geek over _so_ many beers. And all of a sudden, Stiles has _two_ friends.

After class the next week, Stiles goes to the bar with MK, Adnan, and a few others. MK’s so excited about Adnan wanting to design games. The two of them talk above Stiles’s level for a while and his eyes kind of glass over. Stiles hasn’t been a serious gamer in years but he does his best to follow along for a while before giving up and tuning into the other conversations instead. He doesn’t have much to say to any of the other students and gets bored with them after a while. He starts to get fidgety and mumbles something about heading out. He stands up to leave and ends up leading a mass exodus.

As they reach the parking lot, Adnan gives him his number then waves bye. Stiles looks over to see how MK reacts, but she just shrugs.

“… I guess we never, um, talked about … um, do we need to … um? I mean ... this may not be what he ... I dunno?”

“Pretty sure that's _exactly_ what he meant, Marty. It’s fine. I never assumed we’re exclusive. And I'm going back to school in a couple weeks. But you should tell _him_. Uh, and maybe we won’t all hang out _together_ again? Because that could get hella awkward, yeah?” 

“Yeeeeeeeeeeah.”

“And be sure to use protection.” She looks down at his crotch and winks, making Stiles blush.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun facts sources:  
> [kids.nationalgeographic.com/explore/adventure_pass/weird-but-true](http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/explore/adventure_pass/weird-but-true)  
> [mentalfloss.com/article/55443/101-amazing-facts](http://mentalfloss.com/article/55443/101-amazing-facts)  
> [buzzfeed.com/daves4/77-facts-that-sound-like-huge-lies-but-are-completely-true#.fqkQlAjKb](http://www.buzzfeed.com/daves4/77-facts-that-sound-like-huge-lies-but-are-completely-true#.fqkQlAjKb)


	29. Not a Threesome

Stiles walks back to the motel in a daze. It was kind of a huge day. He went to a bar with a shit ton of people. Ok, like _eight_ , maybe. But god it _felt_ like a lot. And someone gave him their number. And MK didn’t care. Because she’s leaving.

She’s _leaving_. MK is leaving. _Soon_. He knew it, of course. At the back of his mind, anyway, he knew. But they hadn’t really been talking about it. They don’t talk about _real_ things. About the _future_. They just have fun. And sex. It’s been easy to forget. To pretend. To live in this sort of suspended reality where the past and the future don’t matter.

He always knew _something_ would happen and he’d move on, probably. So if he thought about it at all, he thought he’d be the one to go, to leave for another town. But it’s been a while since he’s thought about it at all. Hell, it’s been … almost three days since he’s even checked in on Beacon Hills. Fuck! He needs to go to the library in the morning. Shit.

Maybe he should leave when she does. Not to go with her. Obviously. But to just _go_. He’s doing so much better now. He’s talking again. Usually. Mostly. He can go anywhere now. He can maybe pick a name. Get a really good fake ID. Set up a solid new identity. Pick somewhere he can really stay. Not here. It doesn’t make sense to stay here once she’s gone, right? He scrubs his hands through his hair and reminds himself that’s a decision for another day. He has a plan now. For the short term. There’s no reason to change it right now. And beyond that … he doesn’t have to decide right now. It’s a decision for another day. _Focus on today_.

Holy shit, _today_. Today was unexpected. Stiles hasn’t really dated at all. So he doesn’t know what the fuck he and MK are doing. They’ve never talked about it. They’re kind of a one night stand that turned into friends? Friends who still have sex. Or maybe they’re dating? Going out? In a _relationship_? But obviously not an exclusive one, since she doesn’t care that Adnan gave him his number. So Stiles is probably not her _boyfriend_. But, really, he has no fucking idea what the difference is between any of those categories. He certainly doesn’t know how to date more than one person at a time. Since leaving Cali, he hadn’t even had sex with the same person twice until MK. He certainly hasn’t had to juggle _relationships_ with _multiple people_. Are there etiquette rules he’s going to fuck up? If there _are_ rules, he’s 100% likely to fuck. them. up.

It’s all a bit too much for his brain to handle tonight. So he decides to just think about it as hanging out plus occasional sex. With more than one person. But not at the same time. Well, like over the same _time period_ but not _at the same time_. Or like not together _in the same place at the same time_ … or something. Maybe _sex with two people but not a threesome_? Whatever. The point is: if he thinks of it as _hanging out with occasional sex_ , it makes it all much less panic-inducing.

Not that he and Adnan are going to have sex, necessarily. And MK might have been wrong about the whole thing. Maybe Adnan just wants to hang out as friends. Friends who are _just friends_. Friends who _don’t have sex_. But maybe … not? 

Stiles doesn’t even know if he wants anything with Adnan. With MK, it’s been so fucking nice to be close with someone again. He hadn’t realized how touch-starved he’d been. Hadn’t remembered how much better sex is when he’s not angry. Had forgotten how nice it is to learn someone’s body and have them learn yours. How nice it is to build a sexual rapport. And now she’s leaving. And he could leave too.

Or he could stay. And if he stays, maybe he wouldn’t have to be alone when she goes? If he has Adnan. So, yeah. He’d like to hang out with him again. Soon. And maybe have sex at some point. And definitely not be alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm a bit italics-happy today, it seems. *shrug*
> 
> Also, HOLY SHIT, this is over 26k words already?! Remember when I thought Derek was going to show up in chapter 3? What the actual fuck?!


	30. Glass Wall between Them

Their first date is quiet. Not at all like the first time Stiles and Adnan went to the bar after class, where the conversation had flowed easily. Now their conversation is all stop and start. Adnan even seems to be white-knuckling his chair under the table. Stiles worries he did something wrong, but he can’t imagine what. He’s been extra careful. And his pauses before speaking are much shorter now. His quirks are less obvious, he’s pretty sure. But Adnan looks … not upset, but maybe nervous? And Stiles doesn’t have any fucking idea why. But he’s not one to push someone else to talk about something they don’t want to or aren’t ready to yet, for obvious reasons.

“Um, so, um, what can you tell me about your game? Or is it all a secret until it comes out? So, um, people don’t steal your ideas or whatever.”

“Oh. No. It will be _years_ before the game comes out, if it ever does. I can talk a little about it, I guess.”

The date goes a little better after that, but not much. He gets the rough sketch of the game, with lots of references to other games that inspired him along the way. Stiles has only heard of maybe half of them and actually played maybe a third. But this is way better than awkward silence, so he encourages the conversation. They talk about their favorite games growing up, which is much better, but after that the conversation turns stilted again. It’s definitely more lively than earlier, but Stiles thinks everything still feels kind of _off_. Maybe it’s just the added pressure of it being a _date_? If this is a date. He thinks it’s a date? He’s pretty sure, anyway. Like, two dudes who barely know each other don’t usually meet up at a restaurant to talk if it’s not a date, right? So this is a first date. Must be. Maybe it’s first-date jitters, then? So next time should be more relaxed. He hopes.

But the next time is _not_ more relaxed. Adnan seems low-level agitated the whole time, though he’s better about leading the conversation this time. He asks Stiles some halting questions about his past, only some of which Stiles is willing to answer, and then only vaguely. So that’s not going great. Stiles tries to steer the conversation to things he _can_ talk about. Adnan doesn’t look _suspicious_ , exactly, but _something_ is up, and he really has no idea if it’s because of him or Adnan. It’s setting Stiles’s teeth on edge.

For the third date, Stiles suggests a movie. That way they don’t have to talk, since talking doesn’t seem to be their strong point right now--and for once the awkwardness is probably _not_ Stiles’s fault? The movie might have been a tactical mistake, though. They don’t hold hands or even touch each other at all. Stiles leaves his arm loosely on the armrest, available and waiting should someone want to grab his hand, but no. When he looks over, Adnan seems to have a death grip on his drink. They end the date as awkwardly as it started. This might have been the worst one yet?

Stiles walks away feeling unsettled and figures they just won’t see each other outside of class anymore. He figures Adnan isn’t into him, regrets asking him out. So neither of them will call or text and things will just fade away. There’s only two more programming classes anyway, so it won’t be awkward for long, at least. Maybe Stiles will slip out of town once it’s over. Maybe this is a sign to move on.

But the next day, Adnan _does_ text him. He invites Stiles to the bar with him and his friends. Stiles isn’t sure why, but he says yes. He’s not ready to give up, yet, but this will definitely be the make-or-break night. He thinks back to that first night and just has a feeling this could be good, if they can ever break through this glass wall between them. Well, through _Adnan’s_ wall at least. Stiles’s may be permanent.

He’s not entirely sure why yet, but he really wants to try. Not just because MK is leaving. Probably. So he crosses his fingers and tries to set low expectations for the date. In between running and studying the next day, he brainstorms things he _is_ willing to share. With Adnan’s friends and on possible future dates. He actually rehearses some stories in his head. About what he wanted to be when he grew up. And funny stories from high school.

Not that funny stories from high school are easy to excavate, buried as they are under years of terror and bloodshed. And sometimes just thinking about high school makes his lungs ache. But he’s getting better at building this calmer persona. And he needs to do it. To blend in. To establish trust. To be normal. To connect with other people. Because MK is leaving. And here or in the next town, Stiles is going to need people. Now that he has this, he can’t go back to being all alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Went out to see the _Maze Runner_ sequel tonight, so I didn’t get any writing done. I think _Scorch_ is better than _Maze_ in a lot of ways. It just works better as a movie, doesn’t have those weird lulls the first one did. But it also doesn’t have as much heart. Still, it’s way more watchable, and Dylan has clearly leveled up on his acting. I 100% expect him to win an Oscar sometime. That's not a fangirling thing. That's just my opinion based on watching a shit ton of movies, tv, and theater. He's acting at a higher level than most. When he finally gets a really solid screenplay to back him up, he's gonna blow everyone away. 
> 
> This chapter is kind of too much telling and not enough showing, but I don't hear Adnan's voice clearly in my head yet, partly because I don't know shit about video games. So, yeah. That's where I am right now. The next two chapters are written (~700 and 800 words) but could use some revising and maybe I'll be able to expand them a bit. And I hope to get a fair chunk more writing done tomorrow and maybe even some outlining. I know the next big thing that's gonna happen, but I'm not sure yet when it will have the best impact.
> 
> So, yay/boo for today.


	31. A Mystery

MK is away in Vegas right now for a weekend with some high school friends before they all go back to their various schools. Stiles doesn’t know any of these friends. In fact, she never introduced him to any of her friends at all. What was the point, when none of them, including Stiles, were planning to still be in town in the fall? And when he wasn’t much for talking anyway.

He tries to get used to being in the town without her there. Even when she’s in town, they don’t see each other every day. It still manages to feel a bit empty. He has exercise and programming and Latin and his fledgling hacking career to keep him busy. Plus this new thing with Adnan to focus on. Probably. It’s new. And perplexing. He has no idea what the fuck is going on with them. It’s moving at a glacial pace, especially compared to the one-night-stands (or at least first-night-fucks) Stiles has been used to on the road.

Their group date removes the pressure of one-on-one conversation, at least. Stiles spends most of the evening listening, of course. Smiling or nodding when it seems appropriate. They’re a talkative bunch, but now that he’s really looking, he sees that Adnan is a bit detached even with them. The distance isn’t nearly as obvious as it was on their solo dates. But there’s definitely a hint of … maybe uneasiness radiating off him the whole evening?

It’s a mystery, and _Stiles hates mysteries_. Well, ok, _no_. He loves mysteries; he hates leaving mysteries alone. They’re irresistible to him. Like a scab he just haaaaaaaaaas to pick, even when he knows he’s going to make it bleed and maybe even scar. He can’t help it, though. Stiles just fucking _loves_ solving mysteries. And it's been so fucking long.

They meet for ice cream in the park for their next date, and Stiles figures it’ll be really chill--no pun intended. But Adnan looks even more uncomfortable than last time. Stiles is grinding his teeth to keep from asking, from yelling, “WHAT THE FUCK?!” Because, seriously, it’s not like he has any right to call someone out for that. At all.

Instead, he looks around for some inspiration, finally refocusing on Adnan’s Space Invaders shirt. “Hey. I, um, really like your shirt. My friend Scott and I were so into that game as kids. ... We got, um, that arcade simulator? And spent a whole summer going through all those old-school games. Yeah, one week I’d slay him. The next he’d beat my ass so bad. It was great. I don’t remember who finally came out on top. That was a good summer, though.” He smiles.

Adnan smiles back and steers them over to a bench. Tells him stories as they walk about how his older sister is the one who first got into video games. How they’d kept playing even after she went to college. Until she met someone and didn’t have much time for playing games anymore. Then she moved to Chicago after graduation. But whenever she comes home to visit, they still play. Adnan grins, looking the happiest Stiles has seen him since they started dating. If dating is what this is.

They haven’t even _touched_ , really. But it’s usually just the two of them together. Doing date-ish things. And he did introduce Stiles to his friends. Well, he introduced _Marty_ to his friends, anyway. But, Stiles is like 90% sure that these are dates. So … So, he should just ask. And also, there’s something he should tell Adnan, too. Something maybe he should have said a few dates ago, really.

“So … I didn’t know if I should say, um, something about this. Because I’m not … really sure what we’re doing? Like, if this is, um, dating? But, um, if this is … I should tell you … Ok, so, right … I’m sort of seeing MK, I guess? For a little while at least. She’s leaving for school really soon. But we have been. Still are. For now. So if that’s a problem … Sorry. Yeah, I totally should have already told you. Before. But, yeah, I kind of wasn’t sure … what this is … I just … I didn’t know?”

“Oh.”

“Um, it’s not serious. With her. And she, um, doesn’t expect us to be exclusive. And she’s _leaving_. But … yeah … we are. Seeing each other. Now.”

“Oh.”

Stiles squints at him but he has no idea how to read his face, especially because he’s  _always_ so wound up when they're alone. Everything is clamped down tight all. the. time. Stiles can’t read any differences to get a hint at what emotions might be hiding below the surface.

Adnan just sighs and wrings his hands. Well, that doesn’t bode well …

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, today I wrote [over 3k words of a new Sterek fic for Bi Visibility Day](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4835396)* (Sept. 23) instead of working on this. But there's always tomorrow, right?
> 
> * [en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celebrate_Bisexuality_Day](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celebrate_Bisexuality_Day)


	32. Improbable

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a longer chapter, finally. The mystery will be revealed in the next chapter, I promise. But there was some stuff to slog through first. It’s a lot of setup and kind of inelegant and a bit unwieldy and not as well revised as I’d like. But, you know, I just want to get to work on the good stuff. So we’ll all just push through and then tomorrow the hand wringing about Adnan can stop, ok?

“I’m sorry, Adnan. I should have told you sooner. But, um, I didn’t know if this was going to turn into anything. And I didn’t even know how long I’d still be in town, really.” 

“You are _leaving_? You are dating someone else _and_ you are leaving?” 

“No. Maybe. I don’t know. I, um, don’t have a plan right now.” 

“Do you not need a job? Are you independently wealthy? How do you just drift around without a plan?” 

“Um, no. … No job right now. But soon. I’ll, um, definitely need work. But, um, part of it depends on how things go here. You know … after MK leaves. You could, um … you could be part of me … deciding. Maybe.” 

“Oh. That is a big decision to put in my hands.” 

“No, that’s not … I don’t mean you have to … _No._ Just, I thought we could just see. If this is … a thing?” 

“Oh. I think I just need to go home. I need to think. Is that ok?” 

“Of course. Of course.” 

“Thank you. ... Sorry.” 

“No. No! _I’m_ sorry, Adnan.” 

“Ok. Goodnight.”

“Yeah. Ok. ’Night.” Stiles watches him walk away. This is it, probably. Between dropping the bomb about MK and about maybe leaving town and with Adnan being generally squirrely, this is kind of over before it’s really begun. He’s a little relieved and a little sad. Cutting ties again is gonna hurt, no matter how new they are. But either way, he’s not leaving town until he says goodbye to MK. In person. 

To say he’s surprised to hear from Adnan two days later would be like saying baby penguins are _kinda_ cute. It’s a gross understatement and anyone who says it should clearly be _ashamed_ of themselves. 

The text he receives just says: “I was surprised. Can we talk later this week?” After he recovers from the emotional whiplash, Stiles goes for a run instead of answering. Not out of cruelty; he just has no idea what to think about all this. And he won’t interrupt MK’s trip to ask her what the fuck he should say. And also, it’s probably bad form to ask your current someone what to do about your potential future someone, right? 

By the time he gets cleaned up from his run, the library’s closed, so he gets some overpriced, bland food at Starbucks and settles himself down to stake his homesteading claim on a cushy chair in the corner by a power outlet. He sees a reminder in his calendar that he needs to drop something in the mail this week if he wants his dad to get a postcard in time for his birthday. At least he doesn’t have to worry about coming up with something to write on this one. 

There’s nothing new in the sheriff’s station files, other than two more attacks with baseball bats. Both were reported to be black males in their teens. The unreliability of eyewitness testimony combined with blatant racism in cases like this puts the chances of both suspects actually being black at maybe 65 percent, Stiles estimates. But at least it gets him off the hook. 

There’s a message in his dad’s personal email from someone he doesn’t recognize. All it says is: “He’s in stable condition. Nothing new to report.” That’s … weird. And worrisome. But it’s also so fucking vague that Stiles has nowhere to go with it. There’s no name attached to the account. It’s the only message with that address anywhere in his dad’s account. Nothing in the outbox to explain what it might be about. There’s nothing anywhere in either email account with that email address, which is just a string of numbers anyway. He googles it, but of course gets no relevant hits. And there’s nothing obvious in new cases in Beacon Hills or in the local news to help make any sense of the message. 

What to do? What to do? He could reply to the message in hopes of soliciting a response. And delete the new message from the outbox so his dad won’t know he’s sent it. But if the mystery person replies and his dad sees it before Stiles does, he’ll know someone got into his account. And who else would have done it, right? So, that’s a no-go. What else? What else? _What else?_ Ugh, Starbucks is not conducive to complex thinking. How do people write novels at a coffee shop? Or get anything productive done, really? It just seems so improbable. 

He grabs the address for the next person to mail his postcard to, scribbles out a messy Happy Birthday, and then flees for the comfort of fresh air. He drops the postcard into the mailbox and then runs out of things to do. He’s just agitated. Restless. Fight or flight is kicking in but there’s nothing to fight and it’s too soon to flee without any concrete evidence that he’s fucked. This holding pattern is fraying his nerves. 

He just wants to lose himself in fighting or fucking or drinking or sleeping or … something. Instead he goes for another loooooooong run then settles in to brush up on programming. And then Latin. And then, fuck it, ASL. The thought of signing doesn’t make him panic anymore now that’s he’s really talking. And there’s no reason to let himself forget it entirely. It’s a useful skill and fun and he’s still holding onto the idea that he could be an interpreter someday. When he stops running. 

He feels lighter then. Even a little bit hopeful? There’s a ghost of a smile on his face as sleep takes him, and he wakes up the next morning feeling good again. He realizes that he can just let it all go. He knows how to keep moving. And he’s beginning to feel ok with the idea of staying still. However this shakes out, he’s gonna be ok. 

 _Holy fuck._ He _is_. He’s gonna be ok. He collapses in tears of surprise and relief and release. He jerks off in the shower then texts Adnan: “we can talk whenever :) ” and he means it.

He has three kinds of pie for lunch and then hangs out at the library for a while, checking out their foreign language books and adult ed classes and of course checking in on Beacon Hills. He’s thinking of taking a break from Latin for a while and starting in on Greek instead. Especially if he stays. A new language and a new relationship would help keep his restless feet from wanting to roam for a little while. 

He’s trying to figure out what to do for dinner when his phone rings. He frowns, assuming it’s MK back early from Vegas for some reason. But it’s Adnan. 

“Um, hi?” 

“Hi Marty. I was wondering if you are free for dinner?” 

“… Yeah, ok. Sure. That’s … great. Yeah.” 

They meet up at an Italian place Stiles hasn’t tried before, and the lasagna is _to die for_. It’s practically orgasssssssssssmic. Stiles knows he’s making obscene noises, but he can’t help it. This might be the best thing he’s tasted in _years_. He looks up to offer Adnan a bite and almost drops his fork. Adnan looks hungry alright, but not for food. 

“Here. Help me finish this and we can leave?” Adnan just nods back, dazed. He throws down some twenties and drags Stiles out of the restaurant. Clearly over his reluctance to touch, then. Stiles entirely approves of this development. 

“My god, Marty, that was just unfair. That should be illegal in public. You are a menace.” 

Stiles blushes but licks his lips, knowing full well as he does it that’s he’s not helping to deescalate the situation. “Come on. Come on. Take me home. _Come on_.”

Adnan jerks to a stop and blinks rapidly for a minute, coming out of his fog. “Wait.” He looks at Stiles quickly out of the corner of his eye and then just stares at his shoes. “Marty, there is something else we should talk about. Before … ”

Stiles heaves a sigh and straightens his spine, readying for battle. “Sure. Yeah. Ok. Here or … ?”

Adnan tilts his head and leads him to a nearby park where they can sit on the swings. It makes it easier not to face each other, Stiles notices. That’s a nice bonus for what’s clearly going to be a tense conversation. They just sit quietly for a while, swaying forward and back, dragging their feet--both literally and figuratively--and making deep trenches in the sand. 

Stiles will give him as much time as he needs. He’s just relieved that they’re _finally_ going to talk about whatever the fuck the problem is. So he can wait. Knowing that the answer is coming soon--tonight--makes it easier to wait. It’s a perfect evening, at least, and Stiles has nowhere to be anyway. 

“Marty. Are we going to do this? Date, I mean. I know things have been weird. And maybe it is already too late? Maybe you do not want this anymore?”

“ _What?!_ Did you just forget the last 15 minutes? Yes. I want to. _Yes_. I just didn’t know, um, if this was … just a friends thing. For you.”

“Oh. ... I do want to date you, Marty. But there is something I should tell you before we do. I am not dating someone else. It’s not that. And I am fine with the … MK situation. I would prefer not but it will be fine.” 

“You sure about that?”

“Yes. It makes this easier, in a way. I’m nervous to tell you this. It is a thing some people … cannot handle. Especially in dating situations. So before we really date, get serious at all, _do_ anything, you probably should know. I _want_ you to know. And I hope it does not change anything for you. But if it does, you can leave and then it is no big deal. Because you were planning to leave town soon anyway, right?”

“Um, ok. Yeah. That’s still … possible. But I want to. Date you. _Know_ you. So if you want to, um, tell me? That would be … good. Yeah. It would be … great actually.”

Adnan is still silent. Stiles just smiles patiently at him, beginning to wonder if the thing he’s stuttering around saying is that he’s poz. Or maybe sex-repulsed? Either of those could be a big deal for people to work around, but, you know, fine. Not a deal-breaker. There are plenty of ways to be safe having sex with someone who’s HIV-positive. It’s not like the old days where no one knew how it was transmitted. They could definitely make that work. 

Or, if he’s sex-repulsed, they could make that work too. They could negotiate boundaries and it would be fine. In a way, Stiles needs a friend more than a lover. So if Adnan is ace or whatever, it would be like a different kind of friend with benefits, the kind where the benefits are just ... not sexual. 

Stiles can see how either of those would be a hard thing to tell someone. And why Adnan has not been at all physically affectionate. But neither of those would send Stiles heading for the hills--or hitching a ride out of town. And with that look Adnan gave him in the restaurant ... So Stiles waits. He feels prepared for either possibility. But Adnan surprises him by disclosing something entirely different.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There’s this self-rec thing going around Tumblr where writers talk about their own fics. If you’re curious what I have to say about mine, you can [check it out](http://totally0random.tumblr.com/post/129499376172/so-andavs-recommends-all-the-fic-writers-do%20). 
> 
> Also, I posted that Bi Visibility Day fic I mentioned in the last chapter: [I’m Bisexual and I’m Not Attracted to You (Bi Visibility Day)](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4835396).


	33. Tenderness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok. I’m taking a couple days off to listen to the _Hamilton_ * Broadway cast recording a million times and think through the next plotty bits for this story. I just need to make some big structural decisions and get farther ahead of what I’m posting.

“ … Iamintersex. Idon’tknow ifyouknow DoIneed ShouldI Doyouwant … Doyouknowwhatitmeans? Intersex?” 

Stiles throws a hand out to stop him. “Whoa, dude. Um, _breathe_ , ok? Seriously. You look like you’re gonna pass out. _Breeeeeeeeeathe_. I know what it means. You don’t have to explain anything you don't want to. Ok?” 

Stiles _wants_ him to explain. No, that’s not it exactly. Stiles doesn’t want him to have to  _explain_ , but Stiles _does_ want to _know_. Stiles always wants to know. It’s kind of his motto. He wants to _know everything_. About everything. He has a million questions: how long has he known? what did his parents do when they found out? did they know at birth or did this manifest later? what kind of intersex situation is it? because there are so. many. ways. to be intersex. and, does Adnan's condition have health complications? is he ok? how does he  _feel_ about being intersex? His mind rushes through the entire Wikipedia entry, one of his side excursions while exploring the rabbit hole he’d fallen down researching the history of male circumcision in high school. The word actually tells him very little. The _way_ Adnan said it tells him so much more. 

“Oh.” He whooshes out a breath, clearly avoiding looking at Stiles. “Oh. Good. So there it is? That is my ... Me. Who I am. I am a man. Who is intersex.” 

“Ok,” Stiles says stupidly. 

“I have not told … other people. So, please don’t? Because they do not need to know. It does not affect them. Or how they know me. But if we date. You and I. Or not? Maybe you don't ... Maybe I should go now. I should go?” He nods decisively and stands up to leave. 

Stiles reaches out to hold onto his wrist lightly. He gasps at the unexpected contact and looks at Stiles with such a vulnerable look on his face. Stiles thinks he might have just heard his own heart shatter. He pauses to figure out what to say next but gives him a smile while he thinks so Adnan doesn’t worry. As much. He hopes. 

The questions are still popping like fireworks in his head: did you have surgery as a baby? how do you feel about the decisions that were made for you? does your sister know? why are you telling _me_? what happened when you told other people you’ve dated? _have you_ told other people you’ve dated? _why are you telling me? now?_ we’re barely dating, so … what does your telling me mean for us??? 

Stiles keeps all those questions bottled up tight inside himself because he knows that’s where they fucking belong. Curiosity is natural, even more so for Stiles than for most, probably. But he remembers what MK said: being curious about something doesn’t mean he has the right to _know_ or that he should actually _ask_. He can’t stop the stream of questions flowing through his brain, but he acknowledges them silently and then lets them drift away unspoken. 

Stiles doesn’t want what he says next to sound tentative at all. He has to be sure to get this right. There are so many ways he could do this wrong. Damaging ways. He hasn’t been talking again for very long, and certainly not about any fucking _important_ things. He really, really, _really_ doesn’t want to fuck this up. He settles for a slightly forced smile and says, “It sucks that you’ve been worrying about this for so long.” Stiles slips his hand down to give Adnan's a squeeze. “You don’t need to … with me. You don’t need to worry. Ok? This isn't a problem. It's just a ... you know ... it's just a thing that makes you _you_. ... And _I like you_.”

“Oh. … OH.” He looks a little like he might cry, but he’s fighting it hard. He takes a deep breath then another one. “Do you want … Can I kiss you now?” 

Stiles stands, dragging Adnan up with him and pulling him closer. “Maybe not right this second? Because, um, I think maybe right now you kinda need a _hug_.” 

Adnan melts into his arms and Stiles wraps him up tight. They stay like that for what feels like forever before Adnan seems to relax. Stiles pulls back and slides one hand down to Adnan’s hip and palms his neck with the other. Adnan’s eyes are bright with the tears he refuses to let slip, but he looks a little more relaxed, letting out a relieved sigh. He finally looks like _himself_. The guy Stiles met in class. The guy Stiles very much wants to kiss. The guy Stiles just plain _wants_. Especially when he smiles like this.

He knows that this might be a terrible idea, but right now he just really wants to kiss this handsome man who is looking at him as though Stiles has just handed him the world. Looking at him as though Stiles is all he could ever want. 

Fuck, this might be the _worst idea ever_. Because Stiles can’t promise anyone anything right now. And kissing Adnan would feel like a promise. But there’s something there. Something pulling him toward this man in this town. He’s not sure why … but in this moment Stiles wants to _try_. Wants to try having a real connection with someone. Wants to try _staying_. And so he lets himself tip forward, raising an eyebrow at Adnan, who gives him a slight nod before leaning in too. 

The kiss is tentative and sweet and stunningly different from the rushing aggressiveness with MK. The tenderness takes Stiles’s breath away and he realizes this is going to be too much too soon. He knows this, but he can’t stop himself from pressing forward. 

He’d had so little contact for so long before he got to this town. And it’s been so nice to share words and space and pleasure with someone else. But being with Adnan is going to be nothing like with MK. Stiles has certainly never been with someone who might be even more fragile than himself. He just has to hope that, when they come to their inevitable end, they’ll both somehow make it out of this intact. 

They kiss again then walk back to Adnan's car hand-in-hand. It’s been an emotional, exhausting evening. 

“Adnan, _thank you_ for … for trusting me with this. I think this has been a lot for one night, right? Maybe let’s both get some sleep. Dinner again tomorrow?” 

“Oh.” He clears his throat. “That is probably smarter than what I had in mind.” He grins wickedly. “Just text me? Tomorrow. And if you decide you do not …” His voice goes quiet and he’s back to wringing his hands “I will understand, Marty. I will understand if this is … Even if this … I am glad I told you anyway. Even if we do not … ” 

“ _Breathe_. I’ll see you tomorrow.” Stiles squeezes his hand and gives him a quick peck on the cheek before Adnan drives away. 

What. the. fuck? … Stiles doesn’t care that Adnan’s intersex. But he does care that they’ve somehow jumped from a few weeks of dating before Stiles maybe skips town to Adnan telling him private medical information. Something he keeps secret. Something that he’s afraid would drive a partner away. Something that takes bravery for him to reveal. Something that brought tears to his eyes when he'd shared it. 

What the fuck is Stiles doing??? This is the problem with letting himself get attached to people, to a place. How’s he ever going to let himself walk away now, even if there’s an emergency? Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry about the cliffhanger in the previous chapter. Really. I tried, but I couldn't find a better place to break the chapter without making it twice as long. I couldn't just have Adnan reveal why he's been so tense and then end the chapter immediately after, even though that's how I'd normally structure a development like this. 
> 
> The reason I didn't just reveal Adnan is intersex and then end the chapter is because it's not his "secret" that matters to the story. The bombshell is how Stiles might react to being trusted this much. There’s nothing salacious or surprising or anything about being intersex. There are plenty of intersex people for whom it’s not a big deal, but Adnan isn’t one of those people right now. So the cliffhanger _could be_ that he's about to finally reveal what he's struggling with. But the cliffhanger _definitely couldn't be_ the fact that he's intersex.
> 
> Intersex information: [apa.org/topics/lgbt/intersex.pdf](http://www.apa.org/topics/lgbt/intersex.pdf)
> 
> * You really, really want to listen to the _Hamilton_ cast recording while it’s streaming free from NPR: [npr.org/2015/09/16/440925873/first-listen-cast-recording-hamilton](http://www.npr.org/2015/09/16/440925873/first-listen-cast-recording-hamilton)


	34. A Rough Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry to keep you waiting. My brain was being an asshole.

Stiles shows up for his coffee date with Adnan looking like hell.

“You look unwell.” 

“Yeah, you know. Stayed up late thinking about you. And that kiss.” He winks at Adnan, who blushes deeply. 

“Flatterer.” He wrinkles his brow but doesn’t push the issue. 

“Look, it’s just … a lot. Not … ” Stiles sighs, “not _what_ you told me. Just, that you told me this … this thing that you, um, … worry about? Like, you trusted me with this big thing that you usually keep _secret_. And I … I mean, that’s _amazing_. But also a little scary? I’ve, um, I’ve been doing this … I guess, um, solo road trip? for a while? So I just haven’t, um … I just … I haven’t been, like, close to people. Lately. So it’s a bit … yeah … _a lot_.” 

“Oh. Sorry.” 

“No, _no_. You did what you needed to do … for you. It’s … _good_. It’s good. Definitely. And now we can … because it wasn’t going so well … I just … Now it’s … us. Now we’re us. Without … _that_ … between us. And it’s good, right? Um, so, maybe we can try the movies again? Tonight?” 

“I have a big project due at the end of the week. And I have not been very productive this week, as you might imagine,” Adnan says with a wry smile. “Maybe tomorrow?” 

“I can’t tomorrow. Sorry. I’m helping MK pack. But after that, ok? C’mon, c’mon! Get back to work so we can play later! Chop chop!” 

Stiles gives him a peck on the lips and runs out, leaving Adnan looking confused, since he’d just gotten there. For their date. 

Stiles runs back to his room. He makes it inside the door before collapsing. He wanted to be there for Adnan today, to show him he’s still interested. But Stiles hadn’t realized how hard today would be on him. He’s just so emotionally overextended right now. He strips down and crawls into bed, even though it’s not even dark yet. He swaddles himself in a blanket and cries himself to sleep. 

The next morning, he shows up at MK’s looking even worse. 

“What the fuck, Marty?” 

“Heeeeey, MK. How was Vegas? Can’t believe you roped me into helping you abandon me,” he says with a valiant attempt at a laugh. 

“Shit. C’mere. Now. Now. Get down here.” 

He kneels next to her chair and she wraps him up in a huge hug as he starts sobbing. She hugs him tight for a few minutes then says, “Hey, if you didn’t want to help me pack while I regale you with things that definitely did not stay in Vegas, you should have just said.” 

Stiles chokes out a laugh and sits back on his heels, wiping his eyes. “Sorry. I’m kind of a mess today. It’s … it’s fine. I’ll be fine.”

“Yeah, I know. You’re ‘always fine.’ So, uh, based on … ” she waves a hand around encompassing his general everything, “ … I think we have three options here: Forget this mess on your face ever happened and just pack and eat our weight in pizza. Get trashed. Or, uh, talk? I mean, I’m not holding you hostage. You could just bail. If you need to. My brother’s coming over later. The two of us could take care of it without you.” 

“Whoa, you’re springing your family on me? Seems a bit soon for that. Or, well, actually, you’re leaving. So, a bit late for that? Or both, somehow.” 

“Ha ha. He’s mostly coming over for the pizza, I think. There doesn’t have to be some grand introduction. I don’t tell him about people I fuck. He’s only 16.” 

“He any good at that werewolf game you slaughtered me at?” 

“Nah, he’s pretty terrible at it.” 

“Good! Tell him I challenge him to a game later.” 

“Sure. I’m sure beating a kid at some game will _totally_ restore your fragile masculinity. So … uh, we’re going with option 1 then?” 

“Well, I don’t want to be drunk when your brother shows up! Especially if I want to win!” 

“Good tactical decision, there.” 

“But, um, it’s just a … a rough day. I'm just ... Last night ... _Shit_. Ok. Ok." He takes a deep breath and starts over. " _Yesterday_ was my dad’s birthday. And I just … _I miss him_.” 

“Oh, honey, I’m so sorry. You know you can talk to me about any of that if you want.” 

“No, it’s … No. I _don’t_ want … ” he sighs. “I don’t really want to talk about it. Oh my god. At all. But ... I’m glad you’re here. Last year I was alone with a bottle of cheap whiskey and shitty motel cable. It wasn't pretty. So this, here, with you. God, it's so much better.” 

“You want me to put Oscar off until tomorrow?” 

“No. I’m ok. Wait … Oscar. Your brother's name is  _Oscar?_ What’s his middle name?” 

“Huh? Oran.” 

“No fucking way.” 

“ … Way?” 

“Oscar Oran Kelly. You’re Mary Margaret Kelly and he’s Oscar Oran Kelly: _mmk_ and _ook_? That’s … that’s awesome. _Oh my god._ That’s _awesome_.” He dissolves in a fit of giggles. 

“I thought we were over the whole South Park thing? Seriously. You’re uuuuuuuuuuseless today. I give up. Let’s just get drunk and fuck, ok? I can pack tomorrow instead. I can totally pack with a fucking hangover. Unless you just wanted to go home?”

“Um, no? To going home, I mean. I believe the only possible answer to sex with you is YES. Always. Any time. Yes, please.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oooookay. I'm _finally_ getting back into the swing of this. I have the next chunk sort of planned out but not written yet. So I'm not going to be posting daily. This is really all I have written right now. But it's not a cliffhanger, so I figured I'd go ahead and share it.


	35. Would It Be So Awful?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's almost my birthday. Here's a present!

“Hey. Wake up.” 

“Hwah?” 

MK plants her hand on his face and pushes. “Marty. Get up. This is _not_ how you should meet my family.”

Stiles bolts upright. “What?! What time is it? Whaaaaat?” He’s stuck somewhere between a yawn and hyperventilating. 

MK punches him on the arm. “ ’Sup? You got somewhere to be?” 

He gasps in a breath and another. “No. No. Just … surprised. I don’t usually … ” 

“Pass out immediately after coming so hard it hits your chin? … or stay over?” 

“ … Yeah. I didn’t think I would … ” Stiles runs around the room throwing clothes on haphazardly. “I can’t find … where’s my … I’m missing a sock. Um … ” 

“Whoa. Slow down. We’ve still got like half an hour? Just, uh, sit. For a sec. Your shirt’s on backwards, I think? Seriously. Just fucking chill, dude. If you want out, this … ” she waves her palm over his face and chest, “is not gonna get you there.” 

Stiles looks at his feet--one socked the other bare--and collapses in giggles. 

“Uh … ” 

“Sorry, I just … I didn’t expect … ” He clears his throat. “It’s … nothing. Nothing.” 

“Sure. So … you staying for pizza and meeting my brother or getting the fuck outta here?” 

“Well, um, what time are you leaving tomorrow?” 

“Right after lunch, I think.” 

“Ah. Um, so this is _it_. … You excited for the new semester?” 

“Yeah. It’s my last year, so we might actually learn some shit I didn’t already teach myself in middle school. Plus, my senior project should be fun. I just need to find a way to make it sound not like hacking.” 

“Ooooooh. Do I want to know?” 

“ _Yes_. But I’m not telling.” She winks at him. 

“You are an evil seductress. … I’m gonna miss you, you know?” 

“Duh. But you have _Adnan_ now.” 

“Yeah. Maybe? I dunno? He’s kind of … suddenly serious like whoa. 0 to 60 … I dunno. It’s just a lot. Like, surprise! You know?” 

“Right. So, when I leave town tomorrow, you gonna be ahead of me on the interstate out of town?” 

Stiles shrugs then hangs his head and shakes it no. He whispers, “I like it here.” 

“Yeah. It’s not a bad place. A little boring, but not bad. Uh, you know you can stay here and not be with him.” Stiles fiddles silently with the sock he just found. The silence stretches out until someone starts pounding on the door. “Shit. Oscar’s early. Sorry, dude.”

“Nah. Kinda curious what a kid _you_ help raised turned out like.”

“Asshole,” she says as she opens the door. 

“Thanks?”

“Not you, Oscar. _This_ asshole. Oscar, this is Marty. He’s new to our humble town. He just finished begging me not to go back to school because he’s a loser who doesn’t know anyone else here. Speaking of that, he’s really bad at _Legendary_. Like sooooooooo bad. So maybe you can teach him to play while I’m gone?” Stiles and Oscar just look at each other. “God. Ok. Whatever. Where’s the pizza?” Oscar just turns to blink at MK. “Are you shitting me? I told dad to tell you to pick it up on the way.” He just shrugs. “Fine.” She pulls out her phone and orders online. “Ok. Round one while we wait? Loser carries the boxes to the van.” 

Stiles and Oscar both nod. They don’t talk much during the game. It’s oddly silent, like they’re both nervous around each other. MK rolls her eyes at them and starts throwing out insults to prod them along. Eventually they’re both yelling around slices of pizza and getting the controllers greasy.

“Oh my god! I am so fucking sick of werewolves. Why do all these fucking games have werewolves? If I never see another werewolf again, I will die a happy man!” Stiles feels comfortable with the rant since no one can understand him around the half slice he’s chewing.

After the game, MK cleans the controllers and packs up the game system and a tall stack of games. She calls Stiles into the kitchen and asks if she can give Oscar his phone number. 

“Um … why? I mean, why would he need it? And, um, why would you want him to have it?”

“He’s a quiet kid. Not a lot of friends. Reminds me of someone … It’s hard for him when I go away. You don’t have to. But I thought maybe … And you could just play videogames, really. You don’t have to, like, adopt him. Just, I thought you could maybe check in on him sometimes?”

Stiles squints at her. “Sorry, who would be checking on who here?” 

“Whom,” she smirks. 

“Oh, please, no one uses ‘whom’ in casual conversation, especially out loud. The question stands.” 

“Would it be so awful? To have someone here other than just Adnan?” She raises an eyebrow at him.

He just shrugs. “That’s, um, that’s a lot of people … needing me. That _feels_ like _a lot_.”

She just sits quietly, staring at her hands. He swallows hard. It’s suddenly very quiet. Oscar peeks his head in, breaking the tension. Or maybe just refocusing it.

“I have a test in econ tomorrow. I should get home and finish studying.” 

Stiles tries to stifle his laugh but doesn’t quite succeed.

“Yeah … Economics is hilaaaaaaarious, Marty.” 

He just laughs even harder. Oscar looks at MK like _wtf?!_ Stiles coughs and tries to catch his breath. 

“Ok. So. Oh god. Ok. In high school … I had a little trouble, um, focusing? And I ended up writing, um, for economic class … I wrote this paper, um, once … just … You know what? Never mind. I should go?” 

“Oh, hell no. You will finish that story. Right now. _Now_.”

“The history of male circumcision.”

Oscar winces. MK throws her head back and barks out a laugh.

“You’re so weird,” Oscar mutters. 

“Truth,” Stiles points to him, grinning. He smiles back shyly. 

“Well, at least _that_ won’t be on my test,” he says with a chuckle. 

“Good luck, dude,” Stiles claps him on the shoulder. MK just smirks at them, clearly feeling quite self-satisfied. 

“Fine,” Stiles says once she closes the door. “Fine. For as long as I’m here.” He hands over his phone. When she hands it back, he sees she’s sent Oscar a message saying, “This is Marty. Let me know when you’re ready for a rematch.” He takes a deep breath and slides the phone back into his pocket. 

“Look at that, Marty! Everything’s ready to go tomorrow except the bedding, which I’ll throw in the wash in the morning.” 

“Yeah. Um … about that? … Want some help getting it really dirty before you wash it?” 

“Oh, what was your answer to that? Something like: YES. Always. Yes, please?” 

“Asshole,” he mutters as he follows her to the bedroom.


	36. Hitting Reset

Stiles wakes up late, alone in his room, with two texts waiting for him. MK’s says: “l8r bitches!” Adnan’s is: “Come to dinner? Any food dislikes or allergies?” 

He writes back about food first, obviously: “tmrw? usu eat brgrs pizza chix nugg.” Then to MK: “good riddance asshole.” She writes back immediately: “get a job loser.” 

Ugh. No. Definitely not. Or not right now, anyway. He’s so not ready to do anything requiring brainpower yet, so he starts his day with a punishing run instead. When he gets out of the shower, he sees Adnan has written him back: “Appalling. I will cook you something nutritious tomorrow. 7 ok?” He replies: “k thx” and throws the phone down on the bed with a huff. Then he throws himself down next to it and considers some serious day-drinking. 

Ok, sure. Maybe he’s throwing himself a bit of a pity party because his only friend left town. To go back to college. Where he should be right now, too. If he were someone else. From any other fucking town … Instead he’s here in this little city, missing his friend-with-extremely-pleasant-benefits. 

The thing with Adnan is … fragile. Requires a lot of his energy. Probably worth the effort, but that only matters if he has enough energy in the first place. And it wouldn’t be fair to either of them if he started clinging to Adnan out of sheer loneliness. And, ok, lust. But that’s not what either of them need right now. He siiiiiiiighs, thumping his head back on the pillow a few times. That makes him smile because at least he grew out of his Linus-like reliance on his old pillow. So, yay, that’s one mark in the column of being a real actual adult. And that’s enough personal reflection for one day, he thinks. 

So he’s giving himself today. A day to reboot. A day to shake off these feelings of loss and abandonment and desperate loneliness. A day to recenter. Before he tries to find himself. Figure out what he wants. Where he wants to be. Maybe even _who_ he wants to be. But not today. 

He kind of just wants to lie around watching shitty movies and drinking and gorging on bacon pizza and M&Ms. But almost all of that requires leaving his room. He flips on the tv for a while. An hour or so later he decides, yeah, booze is totally worth the effort. He throws on clothes of questionable cleanliness and goes out to get any of his favorite things he can find quickly and easily: pizza, burgers, hot wings, cupcakes, candy, chips, three kinds of alcohol, comics, magazines. 

Back in the room, he strips down to his boxers and queues up _Avengers_ in the background while he shoves food in his face and flips through a magazine. The comics will have to wait until he washes his hands. He’s not collecting them--no room on the road--but old habits die hard. Ooooooh. _Die Hard_. Watch it now or wait for the traditional Christmas viewing??? Choices, choices. He rubs a hand over his food baby as he ponders. Running his fingers up and down through the strip of hair leading down into his boxers, he gets distracted again. Porn time! 

He spends the day jumping from one thing to the next and the next and circling back all day, just _enjoying_ the things he likes. Just being glad of his existence. Right here. Today. In this place. In this body. He just _enjoys_. Being alive. Being free. Being healthy. And if not wholly happy yet, at least convinced he’s capable of it still. If he’ll let himself. 

Tomorrow he can work on making friends. Forging a relationship. Planning the next chunk of his future. Being useful. _Contributing to society_. But today is for him. Today he’s hitting reset.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A lot of my energy is going into not breaking things while providing remote tech support to my dad and keeping him off the ledge while he goes through the process of selling and buying houses so he can move to a new state. I spend a lot of time holding the phone's mouthpiece away from me and doing deep breathing while reminding myself with fondness that he's "old and crazy"* and "this can't last forever." Anyway, I'm wicked low on life energy right now. Family shit, insomnia, general fall blahness. Just ... yeah. That's where I am. 
> 
> Also October is [LGBTQ+ History Month](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_History_Month) and there are a shit ton of special days coming up. Oct. 11 is Coming Out Day. Spirit Day is the 15th. The 26th is Intersex Awareness Day. Asexual Awareness Week is Oct. 15-29. So I'm trying to do some work on the [LGBTQ Days](http://archiveofourown.org/series/278988) series while it's timely. Plus it's nice to stop and do some short, happy, sometimes-silly stories. (Like the one where [Peter is a Sterek-shipping Scooby-Doo villain](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4928191).)
> 
> * I understand that calling people "crazy" is offensive to many people. I choose to use it to make light of problems that run in my own family, in myself. It just seems so much more manageable that way. Still, I am sorry if my choosing to use it hurts anyone. I do try not to use it in the story for that reason. Please feel free to let me know if I slip. It's not your job to correct me, but that kind of feedback is always welcome.


	37. Wrong Answer

Stiles wakes up feeling hopeful, which of course makes him suspicious. But he decides to roll with it. He goes for a short run, gets cleaned up, and has breakfast at his favorite of the local diners. His favorite server is on shift and they smile and chat with him in minute-long spurts as they check on him over the course of his meal. 

He texts MK: “hows campus life” and gets back “booooring. gotta job yet?” “no. help?” His phone rings as he’s getting up to leave. “Hey.” 

“God, it’s just like sex with you, Marty. I’m always having to do all the work.” She heaves a put-upon sigh as Stiles squawks. “God, you’re so easy. I do miss you. The guys around here need 12,000 lines of code to find the clit. It’s pathetic.” 

“You need to get out of your department. Maybe you’d have better luck with _Chemistry_.” 

“Oh, god. Already with the bad puns! Fine, I’ll help you find gainful employment if you promise to _stop with the puns_.”

He sighs. “Deal. Ok, here are the constraints: cash work only, no background check, no government forms.” 

MK is silent for a long moment. “Now I have to ask, obviously. I mean, I know our whole deal was don’t ask/don’t ask. But it’s one thing for me to be ok with not knowing what shit you’re getting into. It’s another to _help you_ get into shit. You know? I’m _not_ going down as an accessory to whatever the hell you’re doing.”

“Says the woman who is trying to figure out a way to hide that fact that her senior project is basically illegal hacking?”

“ … Not the same.” 

“Might be.”

“I have class in 5. Check your email later.”

“Mmmmmmmkay.” 

“Asshole.”

She didn’t say it with as much fond amusement as Stiles was hoping for. He tries not to panic on his way back to the room. He scoops up his laptop, shoves it in the bag. He looks around at the rest of his stuff, at his backpack, which has been mostly empty for a while now. He breathes for a moment and makes himself turn away. The walk to the library does little to clear his head. The email waiting for him from MK doesn’t help much, either. He doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry, so he just clenches his teeth and reads it again:

 

> 1\. Did you break out of prison or jump bail or are you a suspect in a crime?
> 
> 2\. Have you killed anyone?
> 
> 3\. Are you dangerous?
> 
> 4\. If I knew about your past, would I be scared?
> 
> 5\. Is my little brother safe with you?
> 
> 6\. Are you in Witness Protection or hiding from the mob?
> 
> 7\. Are scary people going to come after me and my family?
> 
> 8\. If my Dad knew about your past, would he tell me to stay away from you?
> 
> 9\. Are you an alien?
> 
> 10\. Are you a vampire?

He kind of wants to throw up at that last question. He also kind of wants to laugh. This was obviously meant to put him at ease while also telling him that he needs to cut the crap and level with her. But what the fuck can he say??? He smiles sadly and texts her: “I would NEVER hurt you and your family.” 

She writes back: “Wrong answer.”

Fuuuuuuuuuuuck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ETA: Ok. I'm going on a posting hiatus until I finish writing _all_ of the next big plot point instead of posting as I go.
> 
> ETA: While on break from this, I'm writing touch-starved Sterek fluff with only a little bit of angst. If you want to check it out, it's called [Learning Boundaries](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5021275/chapters/11539213).


	38. Vampires. Don’t. Exist.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles was having such a good day until MK’s email. He makes himself type up a response. Is it reckless? Is it honest? Surprisingly, yes on both counts. Will she believe him? Hell no.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again.

Stiles was having such a good day until MK’s email. He packs up his shit and runs straight back to his room. He drinks half a bottle of bottom-shelf vodka and lets it numb him. 

He makes himself type up a response. Is it reckless? Is it honest? Surprisingly, yes on both counts. Will she believe him? Hell no. He pulls up a blank file and gets to work anyway. He doesn’t know if he’ll send it. That’s a problem for another day. But today, he makes himself write it. 

> MK,
> 
> Vampires? Really? Have you been reading that Twilight shit? Vampires. don’t. exist. And if they did, they sure as hell wouldn’t sparkle. Geez. … Werewolves, on the other hand, are 100% real. And their abs definitely are really that impressive. Seriously. It’s so unfair. Every werewolf I’ve ever met is stupidly attractive and so muscly. And let me tell you, they have stamina. I don’t really recommend fucking them, though. It’s really not worth the bloodshed. And they’re so clingy. Don’t let yourself be some puppy’s chew toy. Stay in your room on full moons, ok? And find something better to read, ffs.
> 
> Look, I get it, ok? Really. I wouldn’t trust me either. I’ve been super fucking shady. And you introduced me to your brother before you really knew just how shady I am. And I owe you. I really do. I wouldn’t be half this functional if I hadn’t met you. So thank you. For everything. And I don’t blame you at all if you never talk to me again. And I applaud all of your self-preservation instincts.
> 
> Anyway, here’s the deal, if you’re still interested: Family shit was shitty and I ended up basically raising myself. So I have no one to blame but me for the mess I turned out to be, I guess. I got bored easily in school and I was in trouble more days than not. In high school, there were some stupid pranks against teammates and shit. I even landed myself in a police interrogation room once. I wasn’t arrested or anything. I think they were trying to scare me straight or something. It was all just dumb high school shit for awhile.
> 
> Then my best friend fell in with a dangerous crowd. I did what I could to keep us safe, but we were just kids still. And we both got hurt. Lots of people got hurt, and I couldn’t stop it. We were never safe. And in the end, my friend picked them over me. All the secrets I was keeping made things even worse at home. So when graduation came, I left town and just kept going. It’s the smartest thing I’ve ever done. Every couple months I send a message back so they know I’m alive. And I just hope it’s enough to keep them from following.
> 
> They don’t want me. Not really. But I’m pretty sure they’re mad I disappeared. And they probably feel a little guilty, too. So I think they’ve been looking for me. Out of obligation and habit, probably, if nothing else. My family has connections in law enforcement. So they’d probably find me eventually if I’m not careful. It doesn’t take a lot of effort to scan for activity with my name attached. So I have to keep off the grid. It’s been long enough that I’m relaxing. A little. Staying here longer than I usually would. But I’m not ready to go back. Not sure I ever will. And living like this is the only way I know how to make sure.
> 
> I’m sorry. You deserve more. You deserve better. But this is as open as I can be. I haven’t told anyone else this. I’m trusting you with this information. And it terrifies me to just think about sending this to you.
> 
> I can’t tell you to trust me. Most of the time I don’t trust myself. But I promise that after all the shit I’ve seen, my number 1 goal in life is to not hurt people. And, if I can help it, to not let anyone get hurt anymore--including me. And this is the only way I know how to keep myself safe.
> 
> I don’t have a gun. I do know basic self-defense. But the thing that’s keeping me safe is this secrecy. So I hope you’ll respect that.

He saves the file and shuts the computer harder than he should. He tries some cleansing breaths, but vodka works better at unknotting his shoulders. He drinks some more and is grateful to pass out for a while.

It’s still light out when he wakes. He has a string of missed texts from Adnan. He doesn’t have the energy to read them, so he just sends a quick message: “sorry. shitty day. talk tmrw.” Adnan writes back: “Can I do anything to help?” Stiles ignores it. He thinks he’s made himself clear enough.

He should just get the fuck out of this town and not look back. Tomorrow, though. Because even the thought of moving hurts him right now. He downs the rest of the vodka and forces himself back to sleep. The best thing to do on a day like today is just to fucking check out and try again tomorrow.

When he wakes again, it’s dark and he still doesn’t want to think. He eats a shit ton of junk food, jerks off, watches a shitty movie, takes a long shower, and jerks off again quickly in the hopes that he’ll manage to sleep through the night this time. 

The next morning, he’s feeling more charitable. Adnan’s text was kind. He’s just not used to anyone caring enough to offer help. In retrospect it’s … nice. And he might owe Adnan a fucking apology. Maybe he’ll even try to apologize to MK, too. He’s not sure yet whether he’ll send the message he wrote up yesterday, though.

He calls and offers to take Adnan to dinner that night. Adnan curtly tells him he’s working on another deadline and won’t be free until the weekend. When he hangs up, Stiles goes back and reads yesterday’s texts. Shiiiiiiiiit. He should have checked _before_ calling. He missed their dinner. The one Adnan was going to cook for him. Fuuuuuuuck.

He calls back to apologize more and Adnan sighs and lets him off the hook. Possibly mostly because he’s busy and needs to get off the phone. Well, shit happens. At least Adnan knows Stiles is an asshole now. Stiles should have warned him about that sooner, probably.

When they do finally have dinner, Stiles kind of wishes they hadn’t. The food is delicious, and he tells Adnan that repeatedly. But then they’re just there in Adnan’s swanky apartment with not much to talk about. The place is … nice. Clean. Maybe too clean. It’s _pristine_ , down to his neatly labeled longboxes of comics. Well, at least that’s something they can talk about for a while.

But eventually the conversation turns personal. He hates that.

“Where are you from, Marty?”

Stiles groans. “You, too?” 

“What do you mean?”

“You and MK with all your questions.”

“ … What?”

“ _What_ what? It’s just both of you throwing weird questions at me lately.” 

“ … That was not a weird question.”

“Well, ok, no. It’s not _weird_. But, I mean, why _now_? You never cared _before_!” he whines.

“I was a bit distracted before. With my own … personal concerns. But we are past that now.” Adnan blushes. “ … Why will you not just tell me? This is normal conversation. This is how people get to know each other.”

Stiles sighs. “Yeah, you’re not wrong. I just … it’s complicated. Life was shitty at home. I left. I don’t like thinking about it, much less talking about it. If that’s a deal breaker, there’s nothing I can do about it, dude.”

Adnan just returns to his food quietly.

“Look, dude: I’m an asshole. I mean, you’ve kind of been seeing me on good behavior up to now. But _this is me_. The real me. I’m an asshole … and you deserve better.”

“No. I apologize for pushing. You knew I had secrets I was not ready to tell. You waited for me. You were kind and patient. And now is my turn. This will be fine.”

Stiles lets out a heavy breath. “You really are too fucking good for me.”

Adnan shakes his head. “There are ways to spend time together without talking.”

He says it in a matter-of-fact manner, but there’s a twinkle in his eye. Stiles chooses to tease, to lighten the mood.

“Oh? Is there a movie you’ve been wanting to see?” He can’t even make it through the question without laughing though. Adnan just gets up and walks to him, hand outstretched. And this? Yeah, Stiles is _very_ good at this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I've had this chapter written for months now. I was holding off until I got inspiration for the ones that will follow. I had even hoped to outline the whole rest of the story. But that didn't happen. I don't think it's gonna happen. I will try that before starting the sequel. But for now, I think I need to just push forward with this in the usual manner or I'll never finish. 
> 
> So, I hope some of you will come along for the ride. I do have the next chunk planned. There will be forward movement. And I hope to do some writing tomorrow. So it shouldn't be too long before the next chapter.
> 
> Basically, I miss writing this story. And I hope it turns out satisfactorily for all of us. But I _need_ to keep writing it.
> 
> ETA: SHIT. Life just happened again all of a sudden. Apparently my town is trying to pass a law against camping on public land without a permit. Sounds innocuous, right? Well, it's basically a way to allow the cops to arrest homeless people who refuse to vacate. So, all of a sudden all my time is tied up in reading research and policy statements about addressing homelessness compassionately and figuring out how to block the law. (Or occasionally watching Korean or Taiwanese dramas with young women pretending to be men.) Anyway, my brain is exhausted and I am emotionally drained. But I'm doing well in general and this is high on my to-do list!


	39. Maybe Not Good, But Effective

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles can tell that Adnan tries not to pry, but questions come up. That’s what happens when you talk to people.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the lovely, supportive comments on the previous chapter. I can’t thank you all enough for the encouragement.
> 
>  

Things with Adnan go better-ish after that night. Although he’s now determined to show Stiles how to cook some things, even though Stiles _doesn’t have a kitchen_. It’s … kind of fun? And it gives them things to talk about that aren’t heavy or so technical about gaming that Stiles can’t concentrate enough to follow. Safe topics. 

Stiles can tell that Adnan _tries_ not to pry, but questions come up. That’s what happens when you talk to people. He’s not used to having to deal with that. Still, Stiles is mostly glad he’s talking to people now. When the questions start, he manufactures a cooking mishap to derail the conversation. So that’s good. Well, maybe not _good_ , but _effective_. 

“This is the easiest dish. You can do this with no problem, Marty.”

“No way, dude, _omelets_ are the easiest. Since you’ve already disqualified scrambled eggs. And toast. And cereal. And sandwiches. Dude, I make AMAZING sandwiches. But since you ruled out all those things, omelets are definitely the easiest.”

“That is not real cooking.”

“That’s not … _what?!_ How is that not cooking?” He ticks off the reasons on his fingers. “It has multiple ingredients. It requires using a real knife for chopping. You need a fucking mixing bowl. And then you cook it. _You cook it._ That’s cooking. Totally real, actual cooking!” Adnan does not look impressed with his logic. “ … Ugh. Whatever. _Fine_. Show me how to make stuffed shells already. I’m fucking starving.” 

Sex is a decent distraction, too. He never stays over, though. Adnan doesn’t exactly ask, not in words, but Stiles can tell he wants it. But staying would be a promise. And therefore a lie. So he always slips out once they’re sweaty and spent. This time before he goes, though, he makes Adnan a killer sandwich for lunch the next day and leaves a note by the key dish. A fucking key dish. Like an actual adult. Stiles is so out of his depth. 

He’s already forgotten about it when he gets the text the next day: You are right. That was a wonderful sandwich. I do not understand how you created a sink full of dishes making a sandwich, though. 

Stiles writes back: glad u like it. magician nvr reveals secrets

Then he goes back to eating his packet of peanut butter crackers with a pout. He totally should have made himself a sandwich, too. He’s washing down this vending machine food with the last of the vodka while he figures out what to do next. 

He ends up moving into the shittiest motel on the planet. If he’s really sticking around, he can’t blow the rest of his money. The new place is skeevy as fuck, so he tries not to spend much time there. It sucks. He’s out of places to explore in town and random library books aren’t holding his attention anymore. There’s no new coding gigs. No luck with odd jobs. Nothing. He’s fucked. 

He goes for one last meal at the diner. A last hurrah before he succumbs to a ramen-only diet between cooking lessons.[1] And there it is waiting for him. It’s a thing of beauty right there in the window. A help-wanted sign just when he needs it.

“Hey. What can I get you?” 

“Burger and tots.”

“Anything else?” 

“A strawberry shake and a job?” 

“Ask when you go up to pay.”

“Awesome.”

It’s not awesome, but it is so much fucking better than nothing. The dishwasher has the flu and the owner won’t let them back until they are very, very, very over it. So she hires Stiles for two weeks. It’s nice to have something to do and make a little money again, finally. Plus, he can scrounge plenty of free food, she pays cash, and when it’s really slow he sometimes fucks the fry cook in the back alley. He tries not to feel guilty about it. It’s petty. And Adnan would be hurt. And maybe that’s exactly why Stiles does it. 

He’s restless and straining at the invisible ropes tying him down. Adnan wants him to be an actual adult but … _ugh_. They cook and fuck and talk about comics and video games and it should be perfect. Adnan is fucking perfect. But Stiles is booooooooooored. 

He thought they’d have plenty to talk about, but they just … agree on too much. Or disagree in ways that aren’t fun. They don’t like the same games at all, and you can’t argue someone into liking the games you like. On the flip side, they love all the same comics. For all the same reasons. And they’ve read mostly all the same titles. Agreeing all the time is as annoying as never agreeing. 

He misses _arguing_ with someone. The rush of passion. The excitement of a good verbal battle. Getting up close and just spitting words into the other person’s face, grabbing a fistful of leather so they can’t back away from the fight. Inching closer and yelling louder just to feel that charge of energy bouncing back and forth between you. 

Really, what’s the point of learning to talk again if there’s nothing worth saying? He falls asleep that night thinking of missed opportunities and might-have-beens. All the things he could have had in a universe like this one but just a little less sucky. In this universe, though, he falls asleep really fucking missing MK.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things are moving in a positive direction with the effort to stop the town from criminalizing homelessness, but it’s a lot of work. So I haven’t had much time or really any emotional energy for writing. 
> 
> Also, congrats to all of us for surviving February. Because February is always the worst fucking month. But now it’s March and sunny and I have things to be angry at my town government for. And, dude, I’ll take anger over depression ANY DAY.
> 
> [1] I'm super-obsessed with ramen right now because I've been watching all these K-dramas. I think I'll hate kimchee, but since it's the national dish and they fucking make it in like half the shows I've watched, I really need to try it. I think I tried it a long time ago, but I'm gonna give it another shot.


	40. Watch Out for Werewolves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles wakes early and in a panic, two of the things way at the top of his non-supernatural shit list. He can’t fall back asleep, either, so he ends up just staring at the ceiling and thinking about MK.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things are going to be super busy with town government stuff for the next couple weeks. But I’ll plug along at this when I can. Pretty sure it won’t be like 5 months before I post the next chapter, at least! ;)

Stiles wakes early and in a panic, two of the things way at the top of his non-supernatural shit list. He can’t fall back asleep, either, so he ends up just staring at the ceiling and thinking about MK, finally letting himself really miss her. 

He knows he can’t fix any of his shit from back home. But this … maybe? Maybe. And if he’s gonna try, he needs to suck it up and do something about it _soon_. It’s probably too late already, but maybe he should try anyway? He thinks he wants to try. 

Worrying about it makes him antsy, though, so he gets up and goes for a run. Just lets MK sit there in his mind as the thump-thump of his shoes on the pavement lulls him into almost a trance. Does he really miss _MK_? Or does he just missing having someone? Someone who understands him. Or at least understands the slivers of himself he’s willing to share. Someone who’s been through some shit too. And has thick enough armor to get close to his jagged edges without bleeding out. Someone with a barbed humor just like his. Someone snarky but willing to listen and just roll their eyes when Stiles (or Marty) is being ridiculous. MK is smart and funny and the right kind of mean, but also really kind in her own way. 

He wants to keep her, and that makes her dangerous. He stops short at the thought and lets himself collapse back onto a wall, gripping the brick so tightly his fingertips turn pink then red before ending up ghostly white. 

He can’t _actually_ keep her, can he? Make her the second number he programs into in his next phone? And the one after, when he’s a thousand miles from here? Can he make her the only number in his phone that he can even be sure actually works? 

He yanks at his hair, as though he could pull a decision right out of his head. That distracts him for a minute because he _really_ needs a fucking haircut. Why didn’t Adnan tell him? It’s curling up behind his ears already. It must look ridiculous. Maybe Adnan likes it? Or maybe he just hasn’t noticed. He’s not a hair-puller--always politely twisting his hands in the sheets instead, no matter how much Stiles assures him he can take it. 

MK would have noticed, though, as she dug her fingertips into his skull and pulled him in tight when she got close. After she caught her breath, she’d’ve called him Shaggy and asked if he had any Scooby snacks. He misses laughing in bed with her. 

He turns the corner and starts jogging back to his room, thinking maybe he’ll just leave his hair long and messy for a while. Maybe wait for a new look until after he leaves town. Because, yeah, he’s still gonna leave. Not tomorrow. Next month maybe? Sometime between next month and the holidays. He probably won’t make it to Thanksgiving here without MK. And, anyway, the idea of still being here in the same town in the new year makes him itch. 

As he unlocks the door, he has to remind himself that it’s not failure to leave this town behind. He was always gonna go. MK knows that. Adnan knows that too. … Or they used to anyway. 

Maybe it’s worse to fix things with MK and then leave anyway. Maybe that’s even shittier than just letting things drop right now. He tips over onto the bed and bangs his head on the mattress again and again and again. It’s pretty effective in bouncing unpleasant thoughts right out of his head. He’d probably give himself brain damage if he keeps at it much longer, though. 

Right on time, his stomach growls, breaking the mood. MK would laugh at the sound. She finds awkward bodily noises hilarious, like she’s still twelve or something. And his body is _full_ of weird sounds now. A cacophony of clicks and pops and creaks and groans from joints that were once dislocated and the countless fractures and broken bones over the years. He can’t remember anymore which ones he got while having fun and which were terrifying. He sighs. He’s held together about as well as his old Jeep, but he’s still running. 

 _Fuck_ , he misses driving. Maybe he’ll buy an old car for cash and just never transfer the plates or title? He’s finishing off some cheese crackers and daydreaming of crappy cars and when he gets a text from Oscar, who must be on his way to school. Shit. He can’t distract himself anymore. He _has to_ email MK. Today. 

He throws on clothes, not caring that he hasn’t showered and his socks don’t match. But he makes himself walk calmly to the library. 

He rereads his original, drunken message. Yeah _noooooooo_. He’s definitely not sending that inexcusable mix of too much honesty and utter ridiculousness. It takes an hour of revisions and revisions and more revisions to prune it down to the bare essentials that he’s only _mildly_ terrified to share. 

> Look, I can’t get into everything. And if that means you can’t deal and you want me to stay away from your family or leave town or whatever, that’s fine. I get it. You’re smart and you care about them. And it makes sense. I get that, really. But there’s a lot of shit I just CAN’T talk about. I know it’s shitty. Sorry.
> 
> A lot of my childhood was awful in a bunch of different ways. Senior year was a craptacular end to a mostly shitty childhood. I lost the people who helped me survive. I had nothing left. I couldn’t be there anymore but I wasn’t ready for college either. So I’m just wandering the country figuring shit out on my own. Really slowly, I guess. 
> 
> I’m not dangerous to you and your family. I don’t have a gun. I don’t owe the mob money. I don’t owe anyone anything, except this explanation to you. 
> 
> Pretty sure my family’s looking for me and I’m NOT ready to be found. Might never be ready. And I’m a legal fucking adult now, so it’s my fucking choice. I send someone postcards so they know I’m ok. That’s ALL the contact I can handle right now.
> 
> I’m doing better at dealing with my shit than before. But this is where I am. It may not be good enough, but if I could do better I’d already be doing it, you know?[1]
> 
> So I’m fucking paranoid and I don’t tell people personal shit and I just fly under the radar as much as possible. I have to. For my mental health and shit. And I’m just BARELY feeling like an actual person again, dude. And A LOT of that is because of you. So thanks, I guess. 
> 
> But it wasn’t JUST you. So don’t get a big fucking head about it. ;)
> 
> Speaking of head, I hope SOMEONE at your dumb college has successfully found your clit and knows what to do with it by now. :D 
> 
> Look, I know this is fucked up. I probably wouldn’t fucking trust me. So, if this is it, thanks for everything. Really. 
> 
> Or, if not, maybe just call me an asshole or whatever and we’ll move on. 
> 
> P.S. - FUCK Twilight. Vampires. aren’t. real. Watch out for werewolves, though. They’re hot af and have stamina like whoa, but the claws and the neverending howling make it not worth it. ;) 

He reads it over three more times and makes himself not delete the postscript. It makes him feel a little better, somehow, to share a bit of his secret with her, even though she’ll obviously think it’s a joke. It alleviates some guilt, anyway. And it might make her smile. All he can do now is hit send and hope for the best. 

He clenches and loosens his fists a few times before texting her: ur bro txtd me to come ovr for pizza n vgames 2nite. dunno what 2 do. chk ur email 

An hour later, she calls. 

“Hey, fucknut.” Her voice sounds tight, but it’s clear that she’s trying. So he tries, too.

“Hi, sex goddess.” 

“No. Uh-uh. Nope.” 

“ … Sorry?” 

“What does Oscar want?” 

“Just what I told you. He invited me over for pizza and games. My treat, apparently. Your dad has a PTO meeting or something? Because apparently this is the 1950s?” 

“No. Not while Dad isn’t there. Tell Oscar the Grouch you’re busy. I’ll … call him later and let him know the rules.” 

“Oh. Yeah.. … Um, you gonna tell _me_ the rules?” 

“Sure. Bye.” 

“ … Oh. … Um … Bye.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1] I probably already said this in another chapter (or maybe in a note on another fic), but this is my personal motto: If I could do better, I would already be doing it. It’s just a reminder to be kind to myself and however low I might be right now, I won’t always be so tired/broken/sad/depressed/incapable of basic self-care/angry/lonely/whatever.
> 
> If any of you are struggling, I hope you’ll keep that idea in mind if it seems useful to you. And I hope you get better soon. I am, I think, finally.  
>  
> 
> Ok, the rest of this story is mostly about Stiles’s emotional growth and learning how to reconnect with others through the OCs and figure out the kind of life he wants to build for himself and which, if any, of the people from his previous life he wants to let back into his new one. 
> 
> There’s going to be very little with Beacon Hills, in part 1, I expect. OTOH, I’m writing this as I go, so BH might pop up unexpectedly--for Stiles and for us! And I do have one Sheriff-related plotty thing in my back pocket, but I need for Stiles to be further along with some other stuff first in order for it to have the right impact when he finds out about it. And it might not be the kind of BH plotty stuff you’re holding out for anyway.
> 
> So, you know, I totally get it if this is no longer your bag. Thanks for giving the story a shot! Also, if you like my writing and are bummed that this story hasn’t ended up doing X or Y or Z, feel free to post ideas for one-shots you’d like to see me write sometime. They’d be like 1-4k words, probably, because that’s the kind of thing I might be able to knock off while waiting for things to percolate with this story.


	41. Par Par Bogey Par

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> His scorecard for today? Par par bogey par. He chuckles quietly at the thought. His mom used to say that all the time for some reason. Not that any of the Stilinskis actually golfed. He’s not even sure where she got it from, or what made him think of it today.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oops. I fucked up the notes in the previous chapter because I moved a chunk of text to this chapter. Oy.
> 
> Also, hello, again! [Everything happens so much](https://twitter.com/horse_ebooks/status/218439593240956928?lang=en), you know? Real life just insists on interfering with things I'd rather be doing. I have 4 precinct meetings tomorrow to encourage people to pass gender identity protections in our town. Wish me luck!
> 
> ETA: And Happy Passover, y'all!

That totally could have gone much worse, really. It’s probably way better than he actually deserves. There’s nothing more he can do about MK for now, anyway. Pushing his luck, he invites Adnan out for dinner at the place with the orgasmic lasagna. All that’s left now is to look for odd jobs and check on things back h… west.

There’s nothing much good in the papers, on the community board, or in the online listings the librarian kindly points him to. He grits his teeth and moves on to checking on Beacon Hell. The day is going pretty ok so far, and he kind of doesn’t want to risk it. But his paranoia will always win out. He can’t _not_ check. Knowledge is power and all that.[1] 

He tries to feel relieved when he doesn’t see anything new. No news is … adequate. He’s getting better about not worrying about shit he can’t do anything about. He makes himself breathe deeply and enjoy the feeling of having his equilibrium back. 

His scorecard for today? Par par bogey par.[2] He chuckles quietly at the thought. His mom used to say that all the time for some reason. Not that any of the Stilinskis actually golfed. He’s not even sure where she got it from, or what made him think of it today. He pulls up a picture of her and just stares through it for a while before packing up and heading out. 

He texts MK random things throughout the following week. Fun facts. Or weird things he’s noticed around town. He doesn’t ask her any questions, though, because he’s not ready for the rejection if she leaves him hanging. This way it’s just sending her things that don’t require a reply. Which is good. Because so far, she hasn’t sent anything back. But she hasn’t told him to stop texting, either. So, it could be worse. 

He’s lonely again, though. Adnan is tutoring at the LGBTQIA center a couple evenings a week now, so Stiles has a lot more time on his hands all of a sudden. And his own hands can only amuse him for so long without wanting to have orgasms with someone else actually in the same room. But mostly he just doesn’t want to be alone with his thoughts right now. 

Adnan asks if he wants to come tutor with him, but that requires a background check before he can work with students, so Stiles declines. He texts “Dine w me @ diner 2nite?” Adnan declines: “I am sorry. That is too greasy for me. My stomach would rebel. Perhaps bar trivia tomorrow with my friends? They have been nagging me to bring you around. “ 

They win easily when Stiles answers every question for them single-handedly. He’s thrilled about the free beer they can get with the $25 gift card, but no one else looks happy. Adnan sounds a bit brittle when he suggests they call it a night. Their teammates bail without accepting Stiles’s suggestion of celebratory drinks, saying he can keep the prize since he’s the one that earned it. It doesn’t sound like a compliment. 

Stiles comes down from his trivia high, realizing he kind of failed epically at the real purpose of tonight’s gathering. None of Adnan’s friends are going to be pestering him to bring Stiles around again. _Fuck_. 

“Whoa. Sorry, dude. I guess that wasn’t any fun for everyone else? … I’ve kind of been in survival mode for a long time, and I just fucking wanted that gift card, you know? I, um, I was just not really considering other people’s needs. I’m so sorry, Adnan. Fuck, your friends must hate me now.”

Adnan slides an arm around his shoulder and kisses him on the temple. “I doubt that.”

Stiles snorts. 

“I did not know you are so smart.” 

“Not sure about _that_. My life choices until recently point to being very _un_ -smart. But, yeah, my head’s chock full of useless trivia. Well, not so useless tonight, I guess. … Shit, I can get a fuck ton of wings and tots with this, you know. Definitely 3 maybe 4 meals. … You think they have trivia night at other places around here? I could save a lot of money this way.” 

Adnan just gapes at him. 

“What? Oh, right. No fun for your friends. Sorry. Maybe, uh, bowling or something with them instead? I’m super shitty at that. Everyone can have lots of fun winning against me!” 

“We will see.” 

Stiles stifles a sigh and pastes on a smile instead, patting him on the hand. “So, the food here’s better than the diner, right? Maybe I can wine and dine you here some night? Or, dine anyway.” 

“That sounds nice. Thank you. Dutch is fine, though.” 

“Dude, you should take me up on this because it’s highly likely I’ll never be able to afford it again unless I start hustling trivia. I could totally clean up.” 

Adnan gives him a sad smile. 

“Hey, this place has to be more relaxing than trying to keep me from burning down your kitchen, right?”

“You are not that bad. Nothing has caught fire.” 

“Yet. … Hey, so, important cooking question: If I take omelet ingredients and dump them in a baking dish instead of a pan and cook it in the oven instead of the stove, does that count as real cooking in the Adnan rulebook, or no?” 

Adnan purses his lips. “That would be a crustless quiche, I suppose. … Yes, that counts.” 

“Yes! I will make that for you one night. Chorizo and potato and onion and red pepper. It’ll knock your socks off. Your rules are ridiculous, by the way. You do know that, right?” He says it with a smile that quickly turns into a leer. “… So, back to yours or is it too late?” 

“I do have an early meeting. Friday?” 

“I have late shift all weekend. I could ask for next Friday off? Bowling with … ” He waves in the general direction that the group had departed to, “Bowling and then to yours?” 

Adnan just smiles at him and kisses him goodnight. Stiles is all the way back to his room before realizing he just made plans more than a week in advance. 

Before he can think too much about it, he gets a string of texts from Oscar: “snik leaking” “leaking bad” “dads out” “mk in class” “srsly dude help.” 

Stiles calls him. “What’s going on, dude?” 

“The sink is leaking!” 

“Yeah. So?” 

“No, it’s leaking like whoa. Dad’s doing some stupid continuing ed thing tonight, so his phone’s off. I can’t get ahold of MK ‘cause she’s in the one class she actually likes. I seriously don’t know what to do. _What do I do, Marty?_ ” 

“Well, maybe start by breathing. That’s always a good place to start. So, go look at the pipe. How bad’s the leak? Like, should we call an emergency plumber?” 

“I don’t know! Can’t you just come over and look at it?” 

“I don’t know where you live. And I don’t have a car.” 

“I’ll come get you.”

Stiles sighs and hopes MK will forgive him. 

The leak is serious, but it’s not like the kitchen is flooding or anything. Nothing that’ll cause permanent damage if they keep emptying the bucket. But it’ll cause a problem overnight if they don’t fix it before then. Stiles turns the water off to the house then starts poking around, finding the source of the problem. Oscar is apparently confident enough in his abilities to wander out of the room to start gaming. Kids these days! 

By the time Stiles turns the water back on and determines he’s patched things up well enough that it should probably hold until they can get a real plumber in, Mr. Kelly is coming in the door. Stiles whips around, mouth dropping open. 

“Hello. Everything ok here? Where’s my son?” 

Stiles squeaks out, “Oscar!” and the boy ambles in. 

“Hey, dad. We had a leak. I didn’t know what to do, but Marty fixed it. He’s the only adult I could think of to call.”

“Really, Oscar? If you’re old enough to drive, you’re old enough to call a plumber.” He sighs, making Stiles feel small on Oscar’s behalf. He hasn’t heard that kind of fond disappointment in years, but it all rushes back. 

“I’m not sure it’s fixed yet, sir. And I’m not sure MK would agree that I’m an actual adult. But I hope it’ll hold until tomorrow so you don’t need to pay a plumber an emergency surcharge, sir. … Um, right … hi? It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Kelly. Um, I’m Marty? Oscar and I played games at MK’s before she went back to school? You can, um, ask her?” 

“Oh. _Marty_.” 

“Yes? Sir.”

“And you know something about plumbing?” 

“A bit of a jack-of-all-trades, sir?” 

“Well, let’s see whether you’ve mastered this one. If it looks ok, I think you can stop calling me sir, huh?” 

Stiles nods, blushing furiously. He’s not sure what MK has told her father about him, but he doesn’t throw Stiles out. Instead he insists that Stiles join them for a thank-you dinner the next night and doesn’t let him weasel out of it. He really, really hopes MK forgives him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1] <https://www.monticello.org/site/jefferson/knowledge-power-quotation>
> 
> [2] I used to watch golf with my dad. Not sure how I survived that. It’s so slow and boring. I must have been doing other things at the same time, but I don’t remember. “Par par bogey par” is something I used to say a lot. And I couldn’t even remember why. Apparently it’s from the movie _[Home for the Holidays](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113321/?ref_=ttqt_qt_tt)_ , which is a fucking excellent movie that I totally need to rewatch again sometime. In looking for the source of the quote, I ran across [this article](http://the-toast.net/2013/08/15/sports-and-title-ix/) that mentions the quote (mine’s a bit off from the original). It’s a good read. 
> 
> So, anyway, in the month since my last update, I hit 96k total hits across all my stories. I'm _way_ past that now, but I can't resist the opportunity to share this video from Certified Genius, Tony winner, Emmy winner, Grammy winner, fucking Pulitzer winner and soon-to-be EGOT-haver Lin-Manuel Miranda's first musical, _In the Heights_ : [96,000, as performed at the Tony Awards](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2Rd7Cpx-Ss). 
> 
>  


	42. Life, the Universe, and Everything

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Before Stiles’s ass even hits the chair in the eat-in-kitchen, Oscar blurts out, “Marty likes history.” Stiles looks at him quizzically. “Tell dad about your _econ_ paper.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter title, "Life, the Universe, and Everything," refers to the chapter number, [42](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrases_from_The_Hitchhiker%27s_Guide_to_the_Galaxy#The_number_42).

The text from MK wakes him up: “bthrm drawre stix fix it b4 dnnr.” He laughs so hard that tears start rolling down his cheeks. It’s not forgiveness, but it’s the closest he’s felt in years. 

He shows up ten minutes early and then feels embarrassed about seeming too eager, so he takes a few turns around the block. The neighborhood borders some woods that might be good to run in sometime if he can ever pry Oscar away from the controller. He circles back and knocks, and Mr. Kelly opens the door with a grin. 

“Marty! Right on time. Very good. Come on in. _I’m_ running a few minutes behind but you can join Oscar in the den if you like. He’s in the middle of a game, though, so he might not notice.” 

“Thank you, sir. I could go ahead and fix the drawer unless I’d be in the way.” 

“Ah, that can wait. Go on.” 

He plops down and knocks shoulders with Oscar. 

“What the f… ” He pauses the game before looking over. “Oh. Hey.” 

“Don’t let me stop you, dude. Don’t want to kill your groove.” 

Oscar shrugs and resumes the game, Stiles nudging him whenever he makes a particularly good move. Oscar blushes but Stiles sees the ghost of a smile too. They’re quiet, but it’s a calming way to ease into what’s bound to be a nerve-wracking night. 

Before Stiles’s ass even hits the chair in the eat-in-kitchen, Oscar blurts out, “Marty likes history.” Stiles looks at him quizzically and Oscar blushes but plows ahead. “Tell dad about your _econ_ paper.” 

Stiles lets out an unexpected burst of laughter. “Ummmm,” he coughs out as Oscar smirks.

Mr. Kelly clears his throat. “Please, do share the joke with the whole class.” 

“Ugh. Both a dad joke _and_ a teacher joke. Twice as bad,” Oscar groans. “C’mon, Marty.”

“Right. Because this topic is totally the right way to start a dinner conversation, dude,” Stiles scowls. Mr. Kelly just waits with the practiced patience of a seasoned school teacher. “Ok. So, um, I might have had a slight problem with focusing. In school. And, um, with insomnia sometimes? So I’d start researching for class and then … kind of fall down a Wikipedia hole.” Mr. Kelly groans. 

“No! As, um, as a first step! You know, to get a sense of where to start. To find suggestions for primary sources. Not instead of!” Mr. Kelly hums, obviously doubting his honesty on that point. 

“Anyway, sometimes along the way … ok, most of the time … I’d get a little distracted and then three hours later I’d end up with a five-page paper about something maybe only tangentially related but _way_ more interesting.” 

“Yes, I’m not finding it hard to imagine you being distractible.” 

“I see where MK gets it from,” Stiles mumbles. Oscar snickers at that and Mr. Kelly raises an eyebrow. “I just mean … um … you know … She doesn’t take sh… _guff_ , um, from anyone. Cuts clear through the, um, _malarkey_ ,” he squeaks out. Fuck, he is sooooooo not prepared for a casual interrogation over dinner with MK Sr. and Jr. He sighs. “Right. So. … I once submitted a twenty-page paper on the history of circumcision. … For my economics class.” 

“And how _exactly_ did you relate it to economics?” 

“Oh, easy: At the end I talked about costs of circumcision at birth vs. lifetime costs of treating STIs and cancer from HPV transmission and also programs incentivizing circumcisions in African countries to attempt to stop the AIDS epidemic.”

Oscar just gapes at him but he thinks Mr. Kelly looks a little impressed. Or maybe just stunned. Yeah, probably stunned. He’s pretty used to that look from teachers, actually. 

“I think Co… um, my teacher was just kind of glad to have something to read other than how the fourth taco you eat is never as satisfying as the first because of diminishing returns.” 

“That doesn’t sound right,” Oscar mumbles. 

“Yeah, no. Because it isn’t. That’s diminishing _marginal benefits_ ,[1] but their reading comprehension skills were deplorable.” 

Mr. Kelly narrows his eyes at Stiles and then nods. “I suppose that’s why your teacher let you get away with the paper.” 

“Huh?” 

“You clearly understood the basic material for the class easily and then found a way to enrich your own education without putting an additional burden on your teacher to keep you engaged with material below your level.” He smiles at Stiles kindly. 

“ … I never really thought about it like that. I just turned it in because I ended up losing three hours to … related topics[2] … and ran out of time to write the regular paper.” 

“I think I would have enjoyed having you in my class, Marty.” 

“Thank you, sir.” Stiles swallows hard and tries to redirect the conversation. “ … What are you teaching in class right now?” 

Mr. Kelly gives him a long look but lets it go, launching into a lively rumination on how civil rights demonstrations have changed over the years and then grilling Oscar on his own studies. 

Stiles tries to find a comfortable level of contributing to the conversation without falling back into old rambling ways that might encourage unwanted questions. As they finish the meal, he’s feeling quite pleased at getting through the night unscathed. 

When Stiles offers to take care of the dishes, Mr. Kelly just shoos him away. “It’s getting late. Go home, son.” 

Stiles feels his heart race but powers through. He pops in to say a quick goodbye to Oscar and gets back only a distracted, unintelligible reply. When he reaches his room, he starts tugging off his clothes and only gets halfway through before collapsing back onto the bed and staring up at the ceiling for a while. 

Next thing he knows, it’s ten hours later and he’s lying half off the bed in boxers, one sock, and a half-buttoned dress shirt. And his phone is beeping with a message from MK:

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1] I know fuck all about economics. All I could even vaguely remember was [some example about eating hamburgers](http://www.econoclass.com/marginalism.html).
> 
> [2] Porn, obviously.
> 
>  
> 
> The amendment passed! My town now covers gender identity and expression in its nondiscrimination laws! And the vote was unanimous. I mean, I don’t think all the representatives there necessarily agreed with it, but no one spoke against it and no one actually voted against it. So it’s officially a unanimous vote. I’m so proud of us!


	43. A Sandwich and a Nap

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Oh my god, I am going to make you come so hard for that. Holy shit.”
> 
> “I will take you up on that promise. But tonight I would settle for a sandwich and a nap with you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy fuck y’all. What a fucking week. I’m sending extra hugs to all of you right now, especially you LGBTQIA+ and Latinx readers. Take care of your hearts. Do plenty of extra self-care this week.
> 
>  
> 
> *** 
> 
> This chapter is a little slow, but with this shit week, I just wanted Stiles to have nice things for a minute. Next chapter has a surprise for Stiles (or maybe the chapter after--I haven't written it; it's just sketched out, so things can shift a bit). I won't say whether it's a good surprise or bad. Or, like life in general, a little of both.

“Hey Adnan. Just checking in. How’s your monster project going? Must not be too bad, right? I mean, you did answer the phone, finally.” 

“I sent it off to the client for review an hour ago.” 

“Awesome possum. Congrats!” 

“Since then I am just going through my inbox. There are still 147 unread messages,” he groans.

“ _Duuuuuuude_.”

“Yes. I must try to catch up on my other projects tomorrow, but for tonight I will leave on time. And I should have regular hours for the rest of the week.”

“Awesome, dude!” 

“Yes, it will be nice to leave the office while it is still daylight.” 

“Wanna meet up for dinner?” 

“Sudo make me a sandwich?”[1] 

“ … ” 

“I … are you not familiar? That is from a ... ” 

Stiles cracks up. Still wheezing, he gasps out, “No, dude. I know! ... Oh my god, that is the best thing you have ever said. Oh my _god_ , I am going to make you come so hard for that. Holy shit.” 

“I will take you up on that promise. But tonight I would settle for a sandwich and a nap with you.” 

“Done and done. 7?” 

“Perfect.” 

 

*** 

 

He’s leaving the library the next afternoon when his phone buzzes: “lgnd rematch n pza?” Adnan had already texted to say the next round of revisions on his project had come in early. Stiles promised to show up with lockpicking tools if they didn’t unchain him from the desk soon. 

So, he was back to his bachelor life again. He had plenty of time to fit in dinner and some RSI-inducing gaming.[2] He sends back: “k + need 2 fix drwr.” 

As Stiles is working on the drawer after dinner, Mr. Kelly seems eager to take advantage of his captivity. 

“So, Marty, how did you meet my daughter?” 

“I fried my laptop. _Irreparably_. She seemed to very much enjoy trashing it for me.” 

“Trashing it?” 

“Yeah. Just completely demolished it. For data safety. It was too damaged to reformat before throwing it out, so she took it apart for me. Ran a magnet over it. Then literally ran over it.” 

“She _ran over it?_ With a _car???_ ” he wheezes. 

“Whoa. No. With her _chair_. … It was more for effect, really.” 

“Yes, that does sound like her,” he says, looking relieved. 

“Right. So, then I took her summer programming class. We all went out after sometimes. It was fun ’til MK and Adnan got way over my head with computer game design technical blah blah blah.” 

“Adnan?” Oscar asks, muffled because his head in the fridge. 

Stiles startles. “Dude! Make some noise when you walk in a room.”

Oscar laughs, “Whatever. Who’s Adnan?”

“My boyfriend? I guess?” 

“Boyfriend?” Oscar asks, shocked. 

“You guess?” Mr. Kelly chimes in. 

“We’re … dating. Or something. … Something.”

Oscar frowns but doesn’t say anything more, wandering off with his Sunny D in hand and a few textbooks under his arm.

“What do you do for work?” Mr. Kelly changes the subject, up to his elbows in suds. 

“Actually, that,” Stiles says, jutting his chin toward the sink. “Or, I was. While the regular dishwasher was out sick. Not sure what’s next for me.”

“So you already finished school?” 

“ … Ah. No. I, um, didn’t go. To college.” 

“Oh?” 

“Sitting and concentrating for a long time isn’t my forte. I’d be ok for upper-level classes, probably, if I made it that far. Two years of gen ed classes would be hell.” 

“That’s a shame. Have you thought about trade school?” 

“Maybe, yeah. I’d need to save up for a while.” 

“Trade schools have financial aid too, you know.” 

“Yeah?” 

“You should look into it for next semester. I could ask my colleagues in the guidance office for some information, if you like.” 

“That’s really … Thanks. … Yeah, maybe.” 

He lets it go. “So how did you end up here?”

FUCK. “Oh. You know. … Here’s nice. … I’ve just been checking out the country. Road tripping. Seeing what’s what. Trying new things.” 

“And you ended up here?” 

“Yeah. MK’s the first person I met here, actually.” 

“Lucky man.”

“Yeah,” he says with a small smile. “So I stuck around for a while. And now Adnan.” He shrugs. “We’ll see.” 

“Well, ok then. … So, you any good with a hammer and a saw?” 

“ _Very_. I worked construction one summer. I liked it a lot. Fresh air. Sun. Making something whole from a pile of stuff.” 

“I was thinking of converting the double garage into an apartment for MK to use while she’s finishing her senior thesis. She’s actually done with her coursework soon, so she can write from anywhere. So, uh, yeah. Just a bedroom and bathroom, no kitchen. Is that something you’d be interested in helping with?”

“Oh. … That’s … Wow. … That’s a _big_ project. And I can’t do plumbing or electrical at all. But the rest I probably could, yeah. … But, um, MK hasn’t mentioned it to me?” 

Mr. Kelly just grins at him and winks. “She doesn’t know yet. It’s going to be a surprise.” 

“Um … Not to step on … I mean, you’ve obviously known her longer, obviously … and, I mean, maybe I’m wrong … but, um, that sounds like a terrible idea? A little bit?”

“Oh?” 

“Sorry. Just, um, like … that’s a lot of money if she decides she wants to stay at school instead.” 

Mr. Kelly’s shoulders sag. “You’re right. Of course. Of course!” Stiles looks down sheepishly but Mr. Kelly just claps him on the shoulder encouragingly. “I’ll talk to her about it and get back to you. Here, put your number in my phone so I don’t have to keep talking to you through Oscar.” 

Stiles nods and types it in with shaking fingers, grateful Mr. Kelly has already turned away to stack plates in the cabinet and can’t see. He finishes unsticking the drawer as quickly as he can and begs off. Mr. Kelly shoves the box with the leftover pizza at him on his way out with a promise to be in touch again soon. 

It goes on like that for a couple weeks. Oscar invites him over for games once or twice a week, though no one mentions the construction project again. There’s always plenty of take-out waiting for Stiles when he walks in and leftovers for when he leaves. 

Sometimes Mr. Kelly calls him after school to ask how to fix something then gets frustrated halfway through and calls back to bribe him with a home-cooked meal in exchange for work the following night. 

Even though Adnan is on the seemingly never-ending deadline again, Stiles is certainly not going to starve--for food or attention--anytime soon. But he needs to pick up work soon that pays in more than pizza. Occasional shifts at the diner aren’t cutting it.

He gets back from his morning run to find a voicemail from MK. He hasn’t heard from her in a while, and he had mostly given up hope. “What is this fuckery?! Do dads usually love you like this? Mine wants to know if he can fucking _hire_ you. Call me. Now.” 

His heart is racing, so he waits until after a long hot shower to call. “Heeeeeeey MK.” 

“Marty.” 

“Sorry. I can tell him I’m busy with another job or whatever!” 

She blows out a breath. “No, it’s ok. … God, they really fucking love you. _Both_ of them.” Stiles snorts. “Seriously. I’m so sick of hearing about awesome you are, asshole.” 

“What?! No. Your brother barely talks to me.” 

“Yeah, well, he talks _about_ you all. the. time. And dad thinks the sun shines out of your ass.”

“Because I let him lecture me on all the historical nuances he can’t cover in class.” 

MK just hums and they fall into a tense silence. 

He whispers, “I can just go if you want. Things with Adnan are … I don’t know. I barely see him lately. There’s nothing else keeping me here.” 

She laughs without much humor. “They’d never forgive me for running you out of town.” 

“I’ll … I don’t know … tell them my grandmother is sick and I have to go home to visit or something. You can tell them later that she took a turn for the worse and I’m just going to stay there for a while. They’ll forget all about it.” 

“Dammit! Why do you have to be so … _Fucksake_ , dude. … God!” Stiles isn’t really sure what she means by that, and she doesn’t explain. Instead she mumbles, “Sorry.” 

He exhales quietly, nodding even though she can’t see him. He surprised that he’s actually sad to leave a place. “I’ll tell them tonight after dinner, if that’s ok.” 

“ _No_. I meant I’m _sorry_ for blowing up at you. You know, _before_. … You’re allowed privacy, dude. … You don’t have to pay for my friendship with your secrets or anything. That was monumentally shitty of me.” 

“No it wasn’t. He’s your kid brother. … But thanks. … I, um … I really like the whole Kelly clan.” 

“That’s because you only know the three of us so far. You should withhold judgment until you meet cousin Patrick.” She doesn’t explain. “Anyway, we seem to like you back, so … ” 

Stiles takes a deep breath and drops down onto the edge of the bed. “You can trust me with your family, MK,” he says solemnly. When it’s clear she’s not going to respond, he tries a joke. “I haven’t been stealing the good silver or anything. Your dad can pat me down on the way out if you’re worried.” That gets a small laugh from her. “Seriously, though, what do you want me to tell him?” 

“Tell him he better put you to work right away if my apartment is going to be ready when I move home at Christmas.” 

“Whaaaaaaat?! For real? That’s … oh my god. Wow. … But I think maybe he’d rather hear that from _you_.” 

“Oh, shut up. Get in the garage and make me some pie!” 

“There’s not actually going to be a kitchen in there, you know.” He says more quietly, “Thank you.” 

“What _ever_. I gotta go, loser. Send me pics of your progress.” 

“Definitely.” He’s smiling when she hangs up.

Holy. shit. 

He flops back onto the bed and lets the tears make their lazy way down his cheeks until one ends up uncomfortably in his ear. Gross.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1] This is from one of the most famous XKCD comics: <https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/149:_Sandwich>
> 
> [2] [Repetitive strain injury](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repetitive_strain_injury)
> 
> So, the mass shooting at Pulse in Orlando has fucked my shit up. After two days of waterworks, I think I’m all out of tears finally. I’m just so glad that I could distract myself with the Tony Awards for a couple hours Sunday night. I also wrote this short fic because I needed to dump my pain about it somewhere: [Collapse into You (Pride Month)](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7181381)


	44. See If We Can Unfuck This

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oscar isn’t looking him in the eye and Stiles is starting to get worried for him. It’s an uncomfortable feeling he hasn’t missed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy [Boxing Day](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boxing_Day).

“Dude, what did you _do_ to this door? Has your dad seen this?”

Oscar shakes his head, gaze averted.

“Like, I don’t know how this is even possible to do by accident.”

Oscar blushes.

“Hey,” Stiles says quietly, pulling Oscar over to sit on the bed, not letting himself get distracted by the kid’s Pokémon comforter.[1] “Are you ok?”

Oscar isn’t looking him in the eye and Stiles is starting to get worried for him. It’s an uncomfortable feeling he hasn’t missed.

“Dude, it’s ok. You can tell me whatever. Or we can just go shoot imaginary people.”

Oscar just stares at his feet, curling and flexing his toes in the carpet. “It’s nothing.” 

Stiles just looks at him a moment and then stands up, slapping his hands on his thighs. “Ok. Hand me the Phillips head. Let’s see if we can unfuck this before your dad gets home.”[2]

Oscar nods wildly, and it makes Stiles chuckle.

“Aren’t you having dinner with your boyfriend tonight?”

“Apparently not,” Stiles sighs. 

“Oh. Sorry.”

“Well, at least I have something useful to do here. And maybe I can swing some free dinner if your dad got enough. Do you think I’m getting fat? Your dad’s not fattening me up for the slaughter, is he?”

Oscar fiddles with random tools in the box while Stiles works. 

“Nah, he said something about claiming you on his taxes this year, though. Write down your Social before you leave.” 

“Har har. … Seriously, though, am I here too much? I could just work on MK’s room after dinner. I don't need ... I don't ... He doesn’t have to … ” Stiles starts gasping. 

“I’m just messing with you Marty. … Whoa … Shit! Just breathe! ” 

Stiles chokes out a laugh at that. “Sorry,” he gasps out. When his breathing calms, he tells Oscar, “I used to get panic attacks. One time a girl kissed me to shock me back into breathing.” 

“ ... You hated kissing a girl that much?”

“What? No. Why would I hate it?” 

“Because you’re gay.” 

“Oh. No, I was actually completely in love with her for years. The kiss wasn't like that, dude. Sadly. But, yeah, I’m not gay.”

“You have a boyfriend?” 

“Dude, the world is way more complex than that.”

“Huh?”

“I’m bi. ... Or pan? Mostly I just say I’m queer. Because I’m into lots of people of multiple genders.” 

“ … Oh. I … ” he trails off, face scrunching up. 

Stiles claps him on the arm. “Yup, there's more than 2 genders. And more than 2 sexualities. Innnnnnnnnfinite options. I don’t rule anything out. Because that’s just boring.” 

“But some people are.” 

“Are what?”

“Just straight. … Or gay.”

“Yeah, totally. Nothing wrong with that, I guess. For other people, anyway.”

“So you’ve _been with_ both? And, like, compared?”

“More than 2, remember. Um, yeah, I’ve been with lots of kinds of people. I travel around a lot, so I haven’t _dated_ much, but yeah. Lots of kinds of people. … Adnan is the first serious-ish thing I’ve had going on in a long time. A looooooooooong time. It’s … well ... ” 

“But you like _guys_ better. And you have a _boyfriend_ now. Doesn’t that mean you’re gay now?”

“Do I like him _better_ than Ma… the girl I dated? Yeah, I don’t know. Haven’t really thought about it? It’s … I don’t know. It’s not really about comparisons. I liked them for different reasons and in different ways. And everything’s just ... different. And she wasn’t like most girls. He’s not like most guys. And I’m not sure there really is such a thing? Anyway. Everyone’s so different. But just because I’m with him now … that doesn’t determine who I’ll be with later. It’s a big world out there with lots of people. Maybe the next one’ll be a guy. Maybe not.”

“So you’re gonna break up with him? And it’s not because you like fucking girls better?” 

Stiles mumbles under his breath, “MK’s gonna kill me.”

“Huh?” 

Oscar jumps up when the front door slams shut, and Stiles feels a little bad about being grateful for the distraction. He can smell the curry from all the way down the hall, and it crinkles his forehead. “Curry. Twice this week.” 

Oscar sighs.

Stiles looks at him in question, but Oscar just grips and releases the comforter in silence. Stiles leaves the silence unbroken and gets back to work. He’s just screwing on the new strike plate when Mr. Kelly calls them to the table.[3] He heads to the kitchen, Oscar trudging listlessly behind him. 

When he’s finally back in his room that night, he texts MK: “talk to OK lately?” before getting changed for a run. He debates whether to take his phone with him. He hates running with it, but if MK tries to reach him while he’s gone she might freak out. He’s already reaching for the phone when it rings. 

“What’s wrong with Grouchy?”

“Your dad got curry twice this week but he makes faces when he eats it. So it must be for Oscar. And it must be like comfort food or something because why else … But why doesn’t he just order something different for himself? Wait, not the point. Curry. Twice. Never happened before.”

“You’re charting my family’s takeout orders? Why would you … No, we’ll get back to that. Dad’s busting out the curry. … _Shit_.”

“He didn’t say anything?” 

“Dad’s big on privacy. So lay it on me: What’s wrong?”

“He didn’t say.”

“Not what I asked.” 

“I don’t _know_ what’s wrong,” Stiles whines.

“But?” 

He sighs. It’s eerie how well she knows him when she knows almost nothing about him. “But we talked a little.” 

“Marty! Being secretive about _your_ shit is fine. I think I’ve been really good about that. But this is my family! You promised.” 

“Hey, I won’t let anything happen to him. But he’s at that weird age where you kind of don’t tell your parents shit. And you helped raised him, so that kind of includes you, probably. I wouldn’t know.”

“Only child, huh? That makes sense.” 

It’s fine for her to know that. It’s totally fine. Completely fine. 

“Yeah. And I told my folks fuckall in high school. Sometimes you just have to work through things on your own.” 

“How’d that work out for ya, Marty?”

“Fuck you for having a valid point.”

“Will he tell you?” 

“You cool with us talking?”

“Yeah. You’ll tell me if I need to know.”

“Sure.” 

“Yeah, that wasn’t a question, Marty. If he’s in trouble and you don’t fucking tell me, I will run over you. And not with my chair.”

“MK, I … Your family is … You’re … all ... important to me.” 

MK snorts.

“I won’t let the Kellys get hurt, ok. I mean, life is fucking painful, right, and I can’t do anything about that. But not for-real hurt. You know what I mean. No actual physical danger.”

MK just hums into the phone but doesn’t say anything right away. 

“Is it ok if I talk to him about whatever he wants to talk about? Are there, I don’t know, restrictions?” 

“Well, don’t teach him to build bombs or anything,” she says, and Stiles feels the memory like a body blow. “But we don’t believe in censorship. Which, you know, in the age of the internet--what would even be the point.” 

“Yeah. Yeah, ok. But maybe you should check in with him anyway? Even if he doesn’t tell you, maybe he’ll feel better or something knowing you're there or whatever.” 

“I don’t need you to tell me how to be a big sister. … Especially since you apparently don’t know anything about siblings.” He can hear her smirk. 

“Whatever. I’m heading out for a run. I’m hanging up.” 

“Wait! I almost forgot. You have to come up for Halloween. Put it in your calendar.” 

“Who even has calendars anymore? ... Wait. What???” 

“You would not believe Halloween on this campus. It’s _sick_. You have to come up. Plus I need to look you in the face when I ask you some shit. And we can do coordinating costumes!” 

“I don’t even know if I’ll still be around then. And no. _Never_.” 

“There’s no way you’re finishing my room by Halloween, dude. I've seen the pictures. You'll be lucky to have it done by December. Get on that, by the way! Anyway, call me tomorrow to let me know how Oscar is.” 

Stiles just hangs up on her. He gets a text a minute later: “TOMORROW.” He throws the phone on the bed and heads out into the night, letting the rhythm of his feet pounding the pavement drive all thoughts out of his head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1] I’m so obsessed with Pokémon Go. Zomg, Christmas Pikachus!
> 
> [2] [wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_screw_drives#Phillips](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_screw_drives#Phillips)  
>    
> [3] [en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strike_plate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strike_plate)


	45. The Clit Sitch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “He asked what I thought of you yesterday.”
> 
> “Your dad?”
> 
> “Oscar.”
> 
> “Oh god.”
> 
> “I told him you’re good in bed.”
> 
> “ _What?!_ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Omg, y’all’ve posted so many amazing comments. I can’t even express how much y’all’s support means to me, especially when I get really, really stuck on a story--like I was for 6 months on DCAM. (Can you tell I just got back from spending the holidays in the South?)

“Hey, MK. Got your message. How’s the clit sitch?”

“Hello to you, too, Marty! My classes are going very well, thanks. And my senior thesis plan is almost done, now that you ask. I emailed it to you yesterday. Let me know by tomorrow if it’s obvious how illegal it is?”

“Not sure I can get to the library in time.”

“Omg, wheeeeeeeeen are you getting a smartphone already?”

“When I don’t have to work doubles to feed myself?”

“Please. I bet you’ve gained 5 pounds since you started working on the house.”

“Yeah, of muscle.”

“Photos or it didn’t happen. Especially since I’m not dating anyone. It’s like I can find guys I want to talk to or guys who are decent in bed. ¿Por qué no los dos???”[1] 

“So what you’re telling me is that I’ve ruined you for other men because I’m sooooooooo good at sex.” 

“Ha. I’m _telling you_ that you need to tell your buddies to up their game.”

“I’ll be sure to put it on the agenda for the next monthly meeting of dudes.”

“How’s my room? You haven’t sent a picture in years! I want proof of what all this supposed muscle-building is accomplishing. I hear you’ve been slacking.”

“Three. Three days since the last photo,” he gripes. “I haven’t gotten over there because of doubles at the diner. Plus a few hours at the bar when I can.”

“ … I think you’re missed at the house.”

“What, is the fridge too full of food?”

“With Oscar there? But I think Dad misses the excuse to order pad thai and samosas.”

“Shit. _Still_ with the curry?”

“He asked what I thought of you yesterday.”

“Your dad?”

“ _Oscar_.”

“Oh god.”

“I told him you’re good in bed.”

“ _What?!_ ”

“Kidding. He asked if I knew you were bi. I told him I knew. _Biblically_.”

“Oh god. Your dad’s never gonna let me back in the house.”

“Sure he will. My room’s not done yet.”

“Well, at least there’s that. But I think sexing up his daughter might outweigh free labor. … Wait, he _outed_ me? Not cool, dude.”

“You can tell him that when you call him back, but he knew I already knew about Adnan, so what’s the big deal with him telling me you’re bi?” 

“Just … you know … it’s … I mean …”

“Well?” 

“Shut up; I’m tired. And I still haven’t gone for my run. … I could invite him for a run?”

“Dude.”

“You should’ve seen _me_ in high school.”

“You’ll have to show me sometime.”

Stiles holds his breath a moment before choking out, “Yeah, like I’m going to send you blackmail material.” 

“Can it really be worse than knowing you managed to give yourself a facial?”[2]

“There’s no proof of that.” 

“Yeah, but I _know_.” She moans, “Seeeeeeeex.”

Stiles sighs too. “I was so tired I even forgot to jerk off yesterday.”

“Dude.”

“I know!”

“Tell me the truth: do you think of Adnan or me when … ?”

“And on that note, bye!”

She calls him right back. “I dreamt about the Butterfly last night. Waking up sucked.”[3]

“Try casting a wider net. Recruiting from off campus!”

He hangs up and texts Oscar, using Swype instead of typing: Sorry I haven’t been busy dibble shifts at the diner your could come do homework I can probably slip your some free fries also not chill telling MK im bi”

Oscar writes back: YOU SLEPT WITH MY SISTER.

Stiles groans and writes back: Past tense dude. 

Apparently that’s not the kid’s main concern. Oscar replies: IS THAT WHY YOU WERE MISSING A SOCK WHEN I MET YOU? OH MY GOD. GROSS.

Unsurprisngly, Oscar doesn’t come by the diner that night. Or any night that week. Stiles swings by one morning just as the Kellys are walking out the door to school. 

Mr. Kelly greets him with a smile. “Marty! I didn’t think we’d see you this week.”

Stiles is extremely relieved that he doesn’t seem pissed. Oscar, on the other hand, just glares and gets in the car without a word.

Mr. Kelly looks between them. “Everything alright here?”

“He didn’t tell you?”

Mr. Kelly frowns. “Maybe you should tell me.”

“Not my place, sir.” 

“Sir? Must be serious.”

“You should, um, ask MK, maybe. I can’t … ”

He just looks at Stiles for a minute before pursing his lips and getting in the car.

MK calls that night. “Dad’s trying to arrange our marriage.”

“Seriously?”

“Not literally. Probably. Apparently Grouchy thinks you and Ad are breaking up, by the way. I think he’s still mad. Dad said I ‘could do a lot worse.’ He also told me to tell you he’ll see you at dinner Monday. Hope you’re ready for some more curry. And ask him for the wifi password already. Seriously.”

The food’s already on the table when Stiles finally returns. And Oscar is nowhere in sight.

Mr. Kelly sighs. “Eating in his room. Which makes this more difficult.” He waves Stiles toward the chair.

“More difficult?”

“I discussed this already with him. And he didn’t say no, but I did want him here for this conversation. Anyway, I figure since you’ve been in MK’s bed already,” he smirks as Stiles chokes on his water, “you might as well move into her room while you finish the construction. Free room and board until the end of the semester if you want. After that we’ll see where we are.” 

Stiles just stares at him. And stares at him. And then stares a bit more because _what?!_

“Oscar’ll come around. He’s got something else that’s been bothering him lately. I don’t think it’s really about you. C’mon; eat before it gets cold.” 

“I … I don’t know if I can. I think I … um … ”

“You don’t have to, of course. I just thought it would free you up from the diner and give you more time to work without worrying about money for rent. I could still pay you a little each week, too. What seems reasonable to you?” 

“I … um … I need to think about … Sorry, can I just … I need to … Yeah, I’ll come back tomorrow and we can … ” he runs out of words and just stares at the floor, unmoving. 

Mr. Kelly claps him on the shoulder. “Sure. Just give me a second.” He packs up some of the food and holds the bag out to Stiles, who accepts it on reflex then just stares at it hanging from his hand. 

“Let me know what time you’ll be coming by tomorrow.” 

Stiles nods dazedly and heads home. He eats the lukewarm food and is about to throw it all out when he sees that Mr. Kelly had given him a real fork. Sneaky bastard. He washes it in the bathroom sink and then stares at it for a minute before tossing it on the nightstand and collapsing in bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1] Why not both? [youtube.com/watch?v=YSTJ5Xe-E8c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSTJ5Xe-E8c)
> 
> [2] [en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facial_(sex_act)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facial_\(sex_act\))
> 
> [3] See end note from [ch. 20](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4651284/chapters/10921898).
> 
>  
> 
> [Y'all, please let me know if you notice continuity problems. Or any problems. I really need a fucking beta.]


	46. Not Suitable for Company Anymore

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It looked like a unicorn vomited all over some goths.

Oscar peeks his head into the garage and cranes his neck looking around. Stiles sees him out of the corner of his eye and stifles a flinch. He leans down to mute the music before turning around. 

“Wassup? You doin’ _o-k_?” 

“You’re too young for dad jokes.” 

“Can’t help it, dude. It’s hilarious, mmkay?” 

“ … She’s not even here.” 

“Thank god. She’d kill me if she saw how behind this is.”

Oscar tries to sneak a photo. 

“Seriously, dude? What’d I ever do to you?” 

“If you quit with the dad jokes, I’ll delete it.” 

Stiles huffs. “Did you actually need something?” 

“Just looking for a rake.” 

“You’re going outside? In the daylight? To perform manual labor?” 

“Har har.”

“You do know this isn’t actually the garage anymore, right?” 

Oscar’s face scrunches up like he’d actually never considered that. 

“When’s the last time you went into your backyard?” 

“I dunno, 4th of July?” 

“Rake’s in the shed. Which is a thing you have now. … Go.” He bends over to crank the music back up, looking behind him when he doesn’t hear the door shut. Oscar’s eyes go wide and he bumps into the door frame on his way out. 

Stiles drops his head to his knees for a moment then gets back to work. 

Mr. Kelly knocks on the door a couple hours later. “Looking good in here, Marty. You’ve gotten a lot done on your own. We might have to call the professionals in soon, huh?” 

Stiles shrugs. “Not yet. At this rate, I dunno if it’ll be done by Christmas. But MK could just stay in her old room for a couple weeks if I’m still running behind, right?” 

“Does that mean you’re getting back together? Or are you officially turning down my offer of a place to stay.” 

Stiles stammers, “We’re not … I’m with Adnan … MK and I … we’re just friends. Now.” 

“And the other question?” 

Stiles picks up a hammer to have something to fiddle with. “It’s too much, sir. You don’t even really know me.” Mr. Kelly raises an eyebrow at that. “And I haven’t lived with other people in … a long time. Too long. … I think maybe I’m not suitable for company anymore.” 

“I doubt that, son. You could try it for a month?” 

“Are you rescuing me, sir, or just worried MK will kill us both if this isn’t done?” 

Mr. Kelly waggles his head. “Maybe a little of both?”

Stiles laughs uncomfortably. “Are you sure? Have you talked to MK about it?”

“It was her idea. She also told me to give you this.” He holds a torn-off sheet of paper at him. 

Stiles just stares at him a moment blinking slowly before reaching out and taking the paper. It’s the wifi password. He snorts. “She keeps sending me revised drafts of her thesis proposal. Let’s pretend you forgot to give me this?”

“Sure. You hungry?” 

Stiles’s stomach growls but he’s a sweaty mess. He can’t sit down and eat with them like this. He plucks his shirt away from his chest and frowns down at himself. 

“Go grab a quick shower if you want. I’m sure I have something that’ll fit you.”

Stiles nods at him and follows him into the house, a bit dazed, not sure how he ended up here.

Mr. Kelly hands him a towel and clothes. “Go on, son. Oscar should be back with the food in 15.” 

He’s pink and minty fresh as he digs clean underwear out of his backpack. It’s the first time he’s needed it, but he congratulates himself on always being prepared. He throws his dirty clothes in the backpack and tugs on the borrowed Pikachu shirt--a little snug but not obscene. The sweats are a bit short and very baggy, with MIT down the leg. He wonders if Mr. Kelly went to MIT. Isn’t it a math and science and engineering school, though? Do they even teach history at MIT?[1] 

The Kellys are setting out food and chatting quietly about their day. Stiles gets himself some water and listens to them tease each other. The familiarity of it is bittersweet.

“Oscar tell you about school today?” 

Stiles’s mouth is full of pepperoni pizza, so he can only make an inquiring noise and tilt his head in question. 

“It was hideous, Marty. Rainbow posters and flags everywhere. Plus the pumpkins and bats and black streamers that were already up for Halloween. I definitely saw no evidence of the students’ advanced fashion sense.” 

Stiles gulps some water to wash down the food sticking in his throat. 

“I’m just kidding. I know that’s a stereotype. But _look_ at this!” He shows Stiles a photo of a shot down a long generic school hallway. He wasn’t exaggerating. It looked like a unicorn vomited all over some goths. 

Stiles lets out a long whistle. “Damn, I’ve actually been to Pride and I’ve never seen that much rainbow sh…stuff all in one place. Whyyyyyyyy?” 

Oscar says quietly, “It’s Coming Out Day.”[2] 

Stiles blinks a few times. “Right. Because it's October. Obviously. With the leaf raking and Halloween decorations and everything. ... So MK seems really excited about dressing up. _Really excited._ But, right, Coming Out Day. Speaking, um, of that … ” his eyes cut quickly to Oscar and then away, “I’m pansexual.”

Oscar rolls his eyes. “I _know_. You already told me.”

“Well, I hadn’t told your _dad_. And sometimes it’s important to actually tell people with actual words. Even if you think they already know. There’s a power in naming it for yourself. In saying it out loud, showing that you’re proud to be who you are. That’s why Pride is so important. … That and lots of people walking around only wearing body paint.” He winks at Mr. Kelly. 

Mr. Kelly just shakes his head. “You kids with your complicated terminology. Back in my day it was just ‘gay.’ Or sometimes ‘bisexual’ if you were hanging out with the college art crowd.” 

“I wonder when we started to use the term ‘straight,’” Stiles muses. “I mean, the dominant group usually goes unmarked until a minority gets powerful enough or receives enough attention to require a word for the previously unmarked group. Like ‘white’ or ‘heterosexual’ or ‘cisgender.’”[3] 

Mr. Kelly groans. “I’m glad the kids are figuring all this out. But can’t they just settle on something already? It seems like words change every other month! We actually have to have a teacher inservice every year now about all these new identities and terms. It’s … ” He stares out the window for a minute before mumbling, “Actually, this might make a good history lesson. Too early in the semester for it, though. Shame. Would be nice to tie it in with Coming Out Day.” 

Stiles clears his throat. “You could wait until the end of the school year, since Pride is in June, commemorating Stonewall.”[4] 

Mr. Kelly hums. “I’ve never taught the gay rights movement. Could be fun.” 

“I mean, it’s not just the Stonewall Riot in ‘69, of course. There was also Compton’s Cafeteria 3 years earlier.”[5] 

“Did you get all that from Wikipedia?” Mr. Kelly teases. “I suppose if it goes well this year, next time I can mention on Coming Out Day that we’ll be studying the gay rights movement in June. Thanks, Marty! This is great. I haven’t taught a fresh topic in my modern history class in way too long.”

Oscar grumbles, “Nerds.” He blushes when Stiles raises an eyebrow at him. He pushes some crusts around on his plate and doesn’t say anything else. 

“You know, they call Stonewall the beginning of the ‘gay rights movement,’ but it wasn’t. And trans women were at the center of Compton and Stonewall, but they’ve mostly been erased from the narrative.” 

Mr. Kelly nods at him before pushing ahead with his question. “Well, what do you think, Oscar? Would the kids enjoy a unit on L-G-B-T history? Or do they already know it all? Are they soooooo over it? Is coming out not a big deal anymore? Or do you kids still struggle with it?”

Oscar chokes. “I … think we wouldn’t need Coming Out Day if it wasn’t a big deal anymore?” 

“Good point,” Mr. Kelly says, turning back to his garlic bread when Oscar doesn’t say anything else. 

Stiles excuses himself awkwardly to the bathroom to give them some breathing space. He has a message from MK checking on their dinner menu tonight. Stiles tells her: pizza night. Things are looking up. 

He texts Adnan, too: Miss you. Hope you’re having a good day  
Adnan sends back: I should be done by 8 if you are free tonight.  
Stiles: Love to see you. Not sure what time I’ll be done here tho  
Adnan: Done with what?  
Stiles: Bit of family drama but I think it’ll be ok. Just want to be here if O needs me  
Adnan: Alright. Let me know. 

When Stiles gets back to the dining room, the Kellys are sitting there silently. Mr. Kelly’s trying not to be obvious about watching Oscar with concern. 

Stiles sighs through his nose then pushes on. “So, Mr. K., what’re you going to throw overboard to make room for the Pride lesson?” 

Oscar clears his throat. And again. 

“You ok, son?” 

Oscar chokes out, “Yeah. Just … just thinking more about your idea. It’s … good. It’s … I think they’ll like it.” 

“Yeah?” 

“And … I think it’s different? For different people? Coming out, I mean?” 

“In what way?” 

Stiles sits quietly, watching the conversation play out in front of him. 

“I think it’s easy for a some people, probably. … Like if they already know people who are gay. Like _know_ them, not just from tv. And so they … they see whether they’re, you know, happy.” His eyes bounce to Stiles and then down to his own hands. “And also see how their family treats them. And then they know if it’ll be ok to be … out. … And also it matters how things are at their school, too. Like, our school is pretty ok but I think I heard the county school is … not?” He looks at Stiles. 

“Yeah, dude. Yeah. My school was great. One of the big sports stars was gay even. And his best friend was a real assh… about most things, but not about _that_. There were gay couples at all the school dances and stuff. Everyone was chill about it.” 

Oscar nods but he’s frowning. “But sometimes even people who are ok with gay people aren’t ok when it’s their own kid, right?” 

“Or think you’re joking when you try to tell him,” Stiles grumbles. The Kellys both frown at him. 

Stiles sighs but Oscar looks so fragile that he makes himself push through. “It’s … it was a … misunderstanding. He thought I was lying to get out of trouble for being caught … Um, doesn’t matter. He has half right. I was kind of using telling him as a distraction, I guess? I don’t think he would’ve joked if he knew I was serious.”

Mr. Kelly puts a hand on Stiles’s arm. “I’m sure you’re right,” he says kindly. 

Stiles blinks a few times then a plows on. “But, um, that was a couple years ago. And things … things are changing so fast now, you know? I’m sure it’s even better for kids coming out today.” He forces a big grin. “I bet it’s no big deal for a lot of them.”

“I hope that’s true, son. I hope all those kids know how loved they are. And how important their happiness is to their families. I’m sure any good parent just wants their kid to he happy and to feel they can be honest about important things in their lives. They’d probably feel terrible if they knew their kid was worried about if they’d still love them.”

Oscar rolls his eyes. “Oh my _god_. Ok. _Fine_. I’m … gay. And I’m … fine. Now you know. I said it. So can we stop with all this …” he waves his hand at them. He says more quietly, “And you can stop with the currys now, dad.” 

“Well, thank god for that.”

Stiles laughs. “Sorry. That was about the curry. Not about you coming out, dude. Awesome. Congrats.”

Mr. Kelly tilts his head at Stiles, who jumps up and stumbles over an unconvincing lie about remembering that he left the light on in the bathroom. When he peeks in a couple minutes later, the Kellys are in the middle of what seems to be a very long hug. But Mr. Kelly waves him in, mouthing, “Thank you.” 

Oscar ducks out of the hug and mumbles, “Ok, can we just … ” 

“How about I take us all out for ice cream?” He whispers conspiratorially, “You know, a boy kissed me once in college.”

“Dad! Oh my god!” 

Stiles gasps. “Does MK know?” 

“Feel free to tell your sister, Oscar, if that helps you with ... I mean, I assume you’re going to … But you don’t have to tell her, of course.” 

Oscar rolls his eyes. “Of course I’m gonna tell her, dad.” 

He throws an arm around Oscar’s shoulder. “Good. Because I’m looking forward to rubbing it in that you came out to _me_ first.”

Oscar looks at his dad, calculation clear in his eyes. “I mean, I don’t really want to tell her _over the phone_.” He sighs dramatically. “I guess I’ll have to wait until Christmas. … unless I ride up to see her at Halloween with Marty …” 

Mr. Kelly gives his son major side-eye while Stiles just drops his head to his chest, accepting his inevitable fate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1] You can get an [undergraduate degree in history from MIT](http://mitadmissions.org/mit-docs/21H-History\(2012\).pdf). Also French, music, philosophy, and writing, among other majors.
> 
> [2] [National Coming Out Day](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Coming_Out_Day) is October 11.
> 
> [3] From [PBS](http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/assault/context/katzhistory.html): “In 1923, "heterosexuality" made its debut in Merriam Webster's authoritative New International Dictionary. "Homosexuality" had, surprisingly, made its debut fourteen years earlier, in 1909, defined as a medical term meaning "morbid sexual passion for one of the same sex." The advertising of a diseased homosexuality preceded the publicizing of a sick heterosexuality. For in 1923 Webster's defined "heterosexuality" as a "Med." term meaning "morbid sexual passion for one of the opposite sex." Only in 1934 does "heterosexuality" first appear in Webster's Second Edition Unabridged defined in what is still the dominant modern mode. There, heterosexuality is finally a "manifestation of sexual passion for one of the opposite sex; normal sexuality." Heterosexuality had finally attained the status of norm.
> 
> In the same 1934 Webster's"homosexuality" had changed as well. It's simply "eroticism for one of the same sex." Both terms' medical origins are no longer cited. Heterosexuality and homosexuality had settled into standard American.” 
> 
> [4] <http://transadvocate.com/so-what-was-stonewall_n_8424.htm>
> 
> [5] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compton%27s_Cafeteria_riot>


	47. Illegitimi Non Carborundum

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Pretty sure you know why he was blushing around you, Marty.”
> 
> “MK.”
> 
> “Really. You can’t date him.”
> 
> Stiles splutters, “Obviously! For a-a-a multitude of reasons. I would never. Oh my god.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Someone help me name some bar trivia teams? Winner(s) can make five wishes for things I could include in this story. I’ll try my best to work in one from each winner.  
>  
> 
> Life update (apparently too long to fit in the end notes, sorry):  
> Sooooooooo, I posted the previous chapter way back on 1/18/2017. President Obama was still in office. Ah, the good old days when we were all fucking terrified of Drumpf but also secretly hoping it wouldn't be as bad as we feard. It's worse, of course, though. I’ve been in shock and sad and angry and doing my best to fucking resist. Mostly at the town level because that’s where individuals have the most power. 
> 
> Sure, I sent like 50 postcards to the White House on whatever day that was (many addressed to “President Bannon” just to piss 45 off). And I’ve been giving money where I can and such. But it all feels … well, if you live in the US you know how it fucking feels. And I apologize to people around the world who are also living through the hell this administration is causing. FUCK THIS SHIT. 
> 
> But, anyway, where I live the town laws are decided by an annual town meeting of around 250 people, each elected to a 3-year term. At the end of this month I’ll be one of them. This year two important issues we’re voting on are to create an official (volunteer) committee for LGBTQIA+ issues and for a Trust Act resolution, which is like being a Sanctuary City but with much more detailed language about what exactly we’re endorsing and what we’re speaking out against. The resolution mostly says that we won’t use town police or other resources to enforce immigration law or create a registry of people based on religion or national origin. 
> 
> This is where it’s at, folx! Start in your city or town, where it is much easier to hold people accountable. Make an appointment with your mayor or city council or whatever. Show up for their public meetings and demand to know what they plan to do to protect the people in your city or town from this fucking “presidential” administration.
> 
> I’ll also be a delegate to the state Democratic convention, where we’ll be deciding on the state platform. It’s not an election year (and certainly not a presidential election year), so I don’t know how influential the platform will be. But it’s a chance to learn how shit happens. And if I like it, I might try again for next year too. I don’t want to ever run for office or anything. But I do want to be in a good position to apply necessary pressure on my local officials to do the things I think are necessary to protect people who need it. 
> 
> So, that’s how to do it: volunteer your time with a city or town group that’s doing good things. Meet people (THIS IS MY LEAST-FAVORITE PART) in important jobs, and then gently shame them into doing shit to make things suck less. ;) I cannot recommend this highly enough. Because when I get overwhelmed by all the BAD SHIT happening in this country and around the world--which sometimes is hourly--I can give myself permission to look away for a while and focus on helping people right here in my neighborhood. In the end, that is the most that we can reliably do anyway. 
> 
> But, keep sending postcards anyway, y’all. It’s a low-effort thing to do that’s really fucking cathartic. Plus, it keeps the Post Office in business!

Stiles is grateful when the jangling sound of Primus blaring from his phone saves him from a sweat-soaked nightmare.[1] By the time he answers, memory of the terrifying dream is already floating away, but his heart’s still racing as he pants out a hello. 

MK snips at him, “You’re not allowed to date my brother.” 

“Huh? What? … _WHAT?!_ ” 

“Oscar called me about your little family dinner. … You knew for a long time, huh?” 

“Well … I mean, I had a hunch? He asked a loooooot of questions about me and Adnan. But he was always kinda really quiet when he asked? And there was a lot of blushing? It was pretty adorable. In the way that makes grandmothers pinch kids’ cheeks.” 

“Pretty sure you know why he was blushing around you, Marty.”

“MK.” 

“Really. You can’t date him.” 

Stiles splutters, “Obviously! For a-a-a _multitude_ of reasons. I would never. Oh my _god_. … You can’t … Look, just pretend you don’t notice, ok? Don’t tease him about this, ok? It’s not even about me, anyway, really. I’m just like the only non-straight guy he knows, so of course ... ”

MK snorts. “Unless you count Dad!”

“Right?! But really, though, do you think so? Honestly, it sounded pretty passive to me. Like, someone kissed _him_. Once. And I think maybe he was just saying it to like lighten the mood and be relatable and shit for Oscar?” 

“I dunno. Maybe it was more than that. Maybe that’s why he hasn’t dated any women since Mom. Though, seriously, she’s enough to put anyone off women permanently.”

“She really that bad? Or do you just want him to be into guys?” 

“I don’t want him to be alone when Oscar graduates. I’m not living in that garage forever, no matter how nice you make it. You owe me pictures, by the way! … I just … I’ve never even heard him talk about anyone other than Mom before. Ever.” 

“Oh, wow. Yeah, um, same.” 

“He talks to you about my mom?” MK whispers.

“No, I meant … mine,” Stiles mumbles back.

Neither of them say anything for a long stretch until MK breaks the tension with an awkward laugh. “Well, maybe _you’ll_ still be living there to keep him company when Oscar graduates. … Oh my god. OH MY GOD. You can’t date my dad either, Marty!” 

“Hanging up now.” 

“You’re still coming up for Halloween, right?” 

“I never agreed to that. Bye!” 

MK texts him: u can pick r costumes. and my ringtone better not still be fucking south park.[2] 

The rest of Stiles’s week is a flurry of email from MK with photos of infamous duos and a demand that if he won’t read the latest draft of her thesis proposal (again) then he could at least settle on their Halloween costumes. 

For each cheesy photo of a famous duo she sends, he sends her back something awful that he knows she’d never pick: Raggedy Ann and Andy, Miley Cyrus and Robin Thicke, Tampax and Aunt Flo, two Tetris pieces. 

When he’s not being harassed by Halloween-related email or working on the garage, Stiles tries to sneak in quickies around Adnan’s ridiculous work schedule, a late-night shift stocking a few dive bars, and occasional early-morning dishwashing shifts at the diner. He doesn’t realize at first, but Stiles has dinner with the Kellys most nights. He hasn’t moved into MK’s room, but there’s a “yet” hanging in the air when he thinks about it now. It feels a little … comfortable? 

He’s out at bar trivia with Mr. Kelly and Oscar when Stiles gets a text: “princess diana and charles at their wedding! so much floof.” He sends back: “john bobbitt and his severed dick” in reply and that’s the last he hears from her.[3] He hopes it’s because she’s finally given up and not … “Oh dear god. Oh no. No no no no no no nooooooo.” 

Team _Illegitimi Non Carborundum_ comes in fourth that night because Stiles is too busy banging his head on the sticky table and whining to even hear the final question.[4] He accepts full blame rather than admit what he and MK had been talking about. 

Team Bastard (as Stiles calls them for short) makes a strong comeback the next week--that $25 gift certificate is practically theirs already, so Stiles thinks it’s safe to answer when Adnan calls saying something about his boss and the team and drinks because … well, Stiles doesn’t catch that part because Oscar’s pulling the phone away to yell in his face asking how many years are required between issuing commemorative postage stamps celebrating the same US state’s entry into the Union.[5] 

Stiles tightens his grip on the phone and signals 50 to Oscar while figuring out what Adnan had been saying. He can’t quite catch up on the conversation, though, so he apologizes for the noise in the bar and says he’ll have to call later. They come in second and get a coupon for a free appetizer, which is ok. It’s the next afternoon before he realizes he forgot to call Adnan back. 

To make up for it, Stiles swings by the comic book store and picks up like a million subscriptions that had been languishing in Adnan’s box. Thank god they had Adnan’s card on file because Stiles is hoarding his own money like Smaug right now.[6] 

Before bed he texts MK: special delivery of comix and orgasm in alley behind office is pretty good apology right. 

MK sends him a gif of Veronica Mars pouting and a text: too busy with thesis to get off. what is my life???

Stiles sends back: ur jollies not my prob anymore babe. 

She sends him her Bitmoji flipping him off, setting off a battle of ridiculous gifs until Stiles falls asleep. He wakes to a call from Adnan inviting him out again, for dinner with some friends the following night. 

“I see how it is,” Stiles teases him. “You have time for fancy cocktails after work with your cow-orkers and posh birthday parties with your friends but not for a real lunch break with meeeeeeee.”[7] 

Adnan snaps back, “I am sorry if my being an adult with a real job is so difficult for you.”

Stiles hangs up on him and throws his phone across the room, ignoring his next 7 calls. 

He sighs when he finds Adnan waiting outside the bar after his shift, but the make-up sex is pretty great, even in a fucking Prius. Of course, he could live without Mr. Kelly tapping the hickey on his neck each time he walks by, and now Oscar’s back to not looking him in the eye. 

The birthday party is pretty great, though. Stiles pats himself on the back for finally finding the right balance between obnoxious-life-of-the-party and too-quiet in a creepy and/or stuck-up way for the first time in his entire life. Adnan seems ridiculously happy that Stiles is getting along with his friends, and Stiles is relieved to see him smiling and glad to finally be together for more than 15 minutes in a row. 

They’re both more than a little buzzed, so they cab it back to Adnan’s apartment and strip down with the intention of sex, but it mellows into nuzzling that quickly drops off into sleep. 

Stiles doesn’t wake up until Adnan’s alarm goes off in the next day. The morning sex is pretty great and the chocolate-chip waffles covered in fruit and whipped cream are divine. Stiles thinks he was pretty dumb for denying himself chocolatey morning kisses before. 

He packs Adnan a fantastic sandwich for lunch and they get a bit distracted grinding against the door on their way out, almost making Adnan late for work--probably for the first time ever, Stiles thinks smugly. It’s good, he tells himself. It’s all good. 

He’s in kind of a great mood all day, even when he breaks the measure-twice-cut-once rule and has to quit working until Mr. Kelly can pick up some more lumber on his way home. 

He takes a meandering walk to the library then to kill some time. He has the Kellys’ wifi password now but he likes the ritual. The quietly bustling library is calming as he does his weekly check-ins before taking the long way back to the house. 

He stands in the doorway to MK’s old room for a few minutes before setting his backpack down inside and closing the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1] I forgot that the same band (Primus) did the Robot Chicken theme too. Falling into this [Wikipedia black hole about Primus frontman Les Claypool](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Claypool) was a lot of fun. I highly recommend it. 
> 
> [2] I really like the [slower, instrumental version](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXA6maPNFVo) they use for the end credits. I’m ancient, so I already knew who Primus was from their [“Jerry Was A Racecar Driver”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBQ2305fLeA) days on 120 Minutes (back when MTV played music videos). It was wild hearing the South Park opening theme for the first time and recognizing them. J
> 
> [3] Domestic violence isn’t funny, and I’m so glad that [Lorena Bobbit](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2616197/Lorena-Bobbitt-speaks-21-years-sliced-husbands-penis-reveals-incident-didnt-hurt-dating-life.html) has recovered from the abusive relationship to lead a really good life now. This is obviously a terrible costume idea that I stole from the internet because people are fucking awful. And it wasn’t a cool thing for Stiles to send MK. But, you know, his sensibilities are pretty dreadful sometimes. 
> 
> [4] <https://about.usps.com/who-we-are/csac/criteria.htm>
> 
> [5] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegitimi_non_carborundum>
> 
> This is a plaque I have in my apartment that used to be in my grandmother’s home office (she’s in an old folks home now):
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> She worked full-time for the Board of Ed in NYC while earning her PhD in Philly while her three kids were still in school. She knew Mayor Ed Koch. When I was in elementary school, she used to wear leather pants and drive an orange sports car. I’ve never in my life been as cool as she still was when she already had grandkids. Also, she looks like a fucking movie star in her wedding pictures. We spend a lot of time making snarky comments about other people when I visit.
> 
> [6] [http://www.thedailybeast.com/galleries/2012/09/20/tolkien-can-draw-who-knew-7-beautiful-hobbit-illustrations-photos.html ](http://www.thedailybeast.com/galleries/2012/09/20/tolkien-can-draw-who-knew-7-beautiful-hobbit-illustrations-photos.html)
> 
> [7] [Cow-orker: http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/C/cow-orker.html](http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/C/cow-orker.html)

**Author's Note:**

> I'll update the tags as I go along.
> 
> ETA: This is my first serial fic, and I'm posting as I go. So anything can happen. Except Steter. I can guarantee there will be no Steter in this fic. 
> 
> Also, Derek will probably not show up until the end. I'm mostly saving him for the sequel.


End file.
